IMF warns: Al may seriously disrupt the labor market.
IMF warns: Al or severe disruption to the labor market. On June 7, according to the Financial Times Chinese report, Gita Gopinath, first deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), said in an interview on the 6th that breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, especially based on large language models such as ChatGPT, may improve productivity and economic output. But she warned that generative AI has the potential to "severely disrupt" the labor market.
Gopinath argues that government agencies and policymakers must act quickly on all aspects of regulating AI to prepare for the possible major disruptions in the labor market. If workers face mass unemployment, this new technology may lead to social unrest. Gopina cited manufacturing automation as an example, pointing out that economists had misjudged automobiles and that production line workers could still find better jobs after losing their jobs.
According to a report released by Goldman Sachs, once generative AI and robots are widely adopted, it is expected that 300 million jobs can be automated, increase productivity, and increase global output by 7% within 10 years.
Gopinath cautioned that countries should avoid repeating history, suggesting that governments strengthen social safety nets for affected workers, while putting in place financial policies that companies that replace their employees with machines will not be rewarded.
According to the New York Times, more than 1,000 tech leaders, technicians and researchers, including Tesla CEO Elon Musk, signed an open letter in March calling for a six-month moratorium on the development of the largest artificial intelligence model. The reason is the fear that "the race to develop and deploy stronger digital thinking is out of control".
On May 30, more than 350 industry executives, researchers, and engineers in the field of AI signed an open letter that stated in just one sentence: "Mitigating the risk of extinction posed by AI should be a global priority, just as dealing with other society-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear wars."
