AI is expected to fundamentally alter the way our economy works. OpenAI is enlisting help to track the impacts.
On Monday, the AI giant launched the OpenAI Economic Research Exchange, a platform supporting external research on AI's economic effects. The exchange will select certain researchers to collaborate on projects, with the goal of producing "credible, independent evidence on how AI is affecting workers, firms, institutions, and the broader economy."
The exchange is seeking researchers with expertise in a broad range of topics, including applied causal inference, measurement, labor economics, productivity, firms, education, entrepreneurship, public finance, regional economics, development and inequality. The company said that any proposals should include the "carefully governed, privacy-protected" use of OpenAI's tooling as part of the research.
The company said the exchange is an effort to expand the evidence and data available to researchers, policymakers, businesses, and the public amid "a period of rapid technological change."
The exchange is not the only sign that OpenAI is preparing for an economic jolt:
- OpenAI said the exchange is building on the company's broader efforts to track AI's economic impacts, including OpenAI Signals,a research effort launched in February to track workforce adoption of ChatGPT. - It also follows The OpenAI Foundation's$250 million commitment, announced in late May, to preempt potential economic crises that AI may cause. That funding seeks to build institutional preparedness for economic shocks, including by funding research and measurement to gain a clear understanding of how this tech will impact the economy.
"Understanding those changes will require more than anecdotes," OpenAI said in its press release. "It will require rigorous empirical research, grounded in real-world evidence and pursued by a broad community of researchers."
Our Deeper View #
OpenAI and its rival Anthropic have amassed a monumental amount of influence and power in the industry. Both, however, are raising concerns about how the tech they are building could upend our economy and society. For instance, OpenAI leaders have called for decentralizing power in AI, while Anthropic has urged the industry to slow development as the tech progresses toward autonomous, self-building systems. However, both firms have now confidentially filed for IPOs, which will naturally encourage them to prioritize shareholder interests, such as profit margins and growth at all costs. So while these companies can say all of the right things, their actions must speak louder than words.