AI brings a lot of promise and will become essential to the growth of the U.S. in the future, but without improvements in education and social services, it could also cause millions of job losses, the White House said in a report on the impact AI will have on the economy.
According to a report covering the White House report, in order to prevent job losses as a result of AI, the country has to invest more money into improving education to get ready for the change in working that AI will bring. “As we look at AI, our biggest economic concern is we won’t have enough of it and that we won’t have enough productivity growth,” Jason Furman, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, said during a call with reporters this week to discuss the research, according to the report. “Anything we can do to have more AI will contribute to more productivity growth and will help make possible more wage and income growth.”
Some of the industries the White House pointed to that would benefit from AI include fraud detection and cyberdefense. The White House wasn’t specific in terms of what industries would be hurt with widescale adoption of AI. It did note that people in lower-paying, lower-skilled jobs with less education will be hurt the most from AI in terms of their jobs.
In addition to improving the education of Americans to prepare for AI, the report also calls for the so-called “social safety net” to be strengthened so that not as many people fall through the cracks. Some of the ways to do that include improving and expanding unemployment insurance and Medicaid, providing more job search help and raising the minimum wage.
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