{"slug": "top-economists-ai-leaders-warn-of-rapid-economic-upheaval-call-for-urgent-policy", "title": "Top Economists, AI Leaders Warn of Rapid Economic Upheaval, Call for Urgent Policy Action", "summary": "More than 200 economists and AI researchers, including 15 Nobel laureates, warned Monday that AI could disrupt the global economy faster than the Industrial Revolution, urging immediate policy action to address job displacement and capture benefits. The open letter, organized by economist Anton Korinek, calls for funded research and defensive frameworks, with signatories including OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar and Google DeepMind Chief Scientist Jeff Dean.", "body_md": "NEW YORK — A coalition of more than 200 global economists and artificial intelligence (AI) researchers on Monday warned that AI could disrupt the worldwide economy at a pace and scale eclipsing the Industrial Revolution.\n\nIn a jointly signed open letter titled “We Must Act Now: A Statement on AI’s Transformation of the Economy,” the group cautioned that public institutions and governments are wholly unprepared for the looming transition. They urged policymakers to immediately fund deep economic research and establish defensive frameworks to navigate widespread job displacement while capturing the technology’s potential benefits.\n\n“Steam, electricity, and computers each gave societies decades to adapt. AI may give us only a few years,” said Anton Korinek, an economics professor at the University of Virginia and an Anthropic researcher who helped organize the initiative. “We cannot improvise our strategy and institutions in the middle of the transformation; waiting for certainty means arriving too late.”\n\nThe statement represents a significant shift within the economic community. Historically, mainstream economists have viewed Silicon Valley’s predictions of swift, widespread automation with skepticism, pointing out that historical technological shifts usually unfold gradually. However, the rapidly accelerating capabilities of generative AI have sparked growing concern that the current transition will be uniquely compressed.\n\nNotably, the letter’s signatories include 15 Nobel laureates in economics, including MIT professors Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson, both of whom have previously been prominent skeptics regarding hyper-optimistic tech timelines.\n\nThe list also bridges the gap between academia and the frontlines of commercial AI development. High-profile tech executives and scientists signed the letter, including OpenAI Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar, Google DeepMind Chief Scientist Jeff Dean, Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark, and former Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt. Venture capitalist Vinod Khosla also backed the statement.\n\nThe coalition stresses that while AI presents historic opportunities to elevate global living standards, the downside risks of failing to prepare are severe. The core objective, signatories argue, should be steering the technology toward helping workers rather than rendering them obsolete.\n\n“We must act now to guide AI to complement humans rather than simply imitate them — and to generate prosperity for the many, not just the few,” wrote Erik Brynjolfsson, director of the Stanford Digital Economy Lab and a co-organizer of the letter.\n\nWith AI capabilities advancing far quicker than the public sector’s understanding of their financial and social implications, the group concluded that coordinated, international policy planning must begin immediately to avoid severe economic whiplash.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/top-economists-ai-leaders-warn-of-rapid-economic-upheaval-call-for-urgent-policy", "canonical_source": "https://techstrong.ai/articles/top-economists-ai-leaders-warn-of-rapid-economic-upheaval-call-for-urgent-policy-action/", "published_at": "2026-07-13 16:55:19+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-07-13 16:56:21.347827+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence", "ai-policy", "ai-ethics", "ai-research", "ai-safety"], "entities": ["Anton Korinek", "University of Virginia", "Anthropic", "Daron Acemoglu", "Simon Johnson", "OpenAI", "Google DeepMind", "Eric Schmidt"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/top-economists-ai-leaders-warn-of-rapid-economic-upheaval-call-for-urgent-policy", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/top-economists-ai-leaders-warn-of-rapid-economic-upheaval-call-for-urgent-policy.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/top-economists-ai-leaders-warn-of-rapid-economic-upheaval-call-for-urgent-policy.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/top-economists-ai-leaders-warn-of-rapid-economic-upheaval-call-for-urgent-policy.jsonld"}}