beige.bookie

A crowded Royal Institution audience watches a lecturer hold a man’s nose while an assistant works bellows and gas erupts behind him; scientific instruments cover the demonstration table.
James Gillray, Scientific Researches!—New Discoveries in Pneumaticks!, 1802. Hand-coloured etching. Public domain.

Preparedness Theater

AI labs' job-loss plans won't say what the public gets

In the last six months the frontier AI labs have begun publishing economic policy papers about what happens if their technology sharply reduces the demand for human labor. Anthropic says that if AI delivers even a fraction of its potential, it could create unprecedented abundance while acting as a general substitute for labor. Its June framework sorts the future into three tiers of rising unemployment, the last beyond anything in the historical record. Alongside it Anthropic announced a $200 million Economic Futures Research Fund and a $150 million national fellowship program.

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