the United States.

Researchers estimate that about 60% of jobs in

advanced economies could be impacted by AI.

Like with all technological revolutions, I expect there

to be significant impact on jobs.

I think if this technology goes wrong, it can go quite

wrong.

Some companies are already seeing the effects.

It basically does the job of 700 full time agents, and

it's happening probably at an unprecedented pace

compared to some other industrial revolutions that

we've seen historically.

There will be a time in the future where robots can do

most of what humans currently do.

We're not there yet, and shame on us if we end up

using it to make people worse off.

Congress so far has focused on research and risk

assessment across at least 15 laws on the subject, but

experts say there's more work to be done.

I've come to the conclusion that it's impossible for

Congress to keep up with the speed of technology.

Right now, their goal is to basically come up with

what's going to be a to do list for future years.

As the development of AI speeds up, politicians are

looking into robot taxes, 32 hour workweeks, deepfake

mitigation and robocalls to confront the looming risks.

Will the US government be able to control AI tools?

Artificial intelligence is making workers more

productive.

Productivity comes from improvements in technology.

The steam engine was a big technology that that raised

living standards. Electricity, computers and

now artificial intelligence is the great general purpose

technology of our era.

For example, one study found that workers who use AI

assistants increased their productivity by 14% per hour

on average. This particular study focused on customer

service call centers.

Newer workers, the less skilled workers got the

biggest gain. They got up about a 35% gain, whereas

the most skilled workers got basically zero gain.

So it was kind of a leveler.

Part of what seemed to be going on was that it was

capturing the tacit knowledge about how to

create good answers from the best workers, the best

answers, and making it accessible to the rest of

the workers.

Economists and politicians believe this technology

could be deployed very quickly, and in fact, it

already has.

When we launched this AI chatbot, what blew us away

was just that it basically was capable of taking care

of two thirds of all the incoming errands that we

have over chat, and was doing so with same or even

many times higher customer satisfaction score than the

human agents were.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski is the CEO of Klarna, a Sweden

based financial services provider.

The company offers buy now, pay later options on

websites for over 500,000 merchants, including Nike,

Instacart, Yeti, Rei and Brooks Brothers.

The first thing the customer writes in the chat is agent

like, I want to speak to a human, and I think the

reason for that is simply that all of us have had such

a horrible experiences of these chatbots that were so

not intelligent.

But the difference with this chatbot that we

launched is that people appreciate it.

It's fast. It's to the point it actually resolves

their errands in general, an average time of

resolution. So like when the customer starts chatting

with us and actually resolves, that could be

about ten minutes with a human agent while it's been

about two minutes with the AI.

So I think that unfortunately we may end up

having a significant amount of permanent technological

unemployment, that income and wealth inequality will

rise.

The concerns about inequality have led

economists to study robot taxes.

The idea is to charge companies that use

technology to displace workers.

The funds would help governments make up for the

loss of income and payroll taxes that robots aren't

charged, with some revenue set aside to support

displaced workers, the ideal level for this tax

would be 1 to 3.7%, according to researchers at

MIT. By comparison, both employers and employees pay

7.65% for payroll taxes, in addition to other taxes at

the federal, state, and local levels.

One of the first rules of taxation is whatever you

tax, you get less of.

Robots are part of what boost technological growth.

So I'm not sure we want to have less of that.

In 2023, a group of New York State Assembly members

introduced a bill that taxes corporations that use

AI algorithms that replace workers in the state.

But it's not law. Yet lawmakers in Washington are

far away from deciding on policy details like this.

So I wouldn't expect anything on AI right away.

At least not a really impressive comprehensive

package. If there is an emergency, say, in the next

year, in the next couple of years, that might spur

Congress to act.

A potential tax on robots would have to be extremely

high to alleviate inequality, according to a

Kellogg School of Management study.

But even then, economists worry that it could shrink

the United States economic competitiveness.

Other members of Congress take a different approach in

light of the rapid development of AI.

For example, Bernie Sanders has proposed shortening the

workweek to four days.

Technology has made working people far more productive,

and what has been the result of all of that

productivity increase for working people?

Almost all of the economic gains of that technological

transformation have gone straight to the top, while

wages for workers have remained stagnant or even

worse.

Researchers believe that AI tools are not yet well

developed enough to fully replace human beings.

If you've used ChatGPT, you know that it's fun and it's

cool, but it sometimes makes mistakes.

It can hallucinate where it just makes up things that

aren't true.

That hasn't stopped investors from piling money

into the tech sector, expecting huge gains in the

future. Companies like Microsoft, Google, Apple,

and Meta are all developing artificial intelligence

copilots. But the dominant brand, OpenAI, isn't traded

on public markets.

OpenAI is of the highest quality and gives us the

best experience, but there's tons of internal

work on top of that amazing technology that they, you

know, help us with.

Klarna says that OpenAI's assistant tool is estimated

to produce $40 million in profit improvement in 2024.

Large language models like ChatGPT and Claude and

Gemini tend to work better.

The bigger they are, the more data they have.

It is often kind of a winner take all or winner

take most game.

Over 50,000 workers lost tech jobs in 2024 as of

April. In some cases, leaders were making room for

new talent who could develop AI tools.

Artificial intelligence is really at play here.

When you really look at the numbers of people that are

being restructured or being laid off, you're looking at

a lot of white collar jobs.

Goldman Sachs predicted that 300 million jobs could

change as AI tools roll out.

Jobs that involve physical work are less likely to be

affected. For example, IBM told its employees that it's

cutting down jobs in its marketing and communications

division, while massively upskilling all of its

employees on AI.

Revenue per employee is going to be significantly

higher than what we've seen historically, and I think it

will benefit the employees of those companies because

they will also pay more per employee.

A survey of 1400 US business leaders suggests that most

corporate executives will hire more people as a result

of generative AI, not less.

Experts believe that's because the tools currently

can make workers more productive, but can't

replace them altogether.

The technology is having an impact in some parts of the

market, but I don't think it's having a broad based

effect yet. Over the coming years, we'll see more

effects.

The federal government is in a race against time to

understand AI before the products become even

stronger.

Congress failed to meet the moment on social media.

Now we have the obligation to do it on AI before the

threats and the risks become real.

It's not just about the copyright holders of today

and those who will generate new copyright with the

assistance of AI.

It's about whether America will lead the world.

In 2024, the House of Representatives launched a

task force to address the wide ranging risks raised by

tools that can mimic human thought, language, likeness

and more.

A part of the idea behind the task force is if you

look at who's on it, it's a bunch of different Democrats

and Republicans from various committees.

The idea here is to kind of have one coordinating body.

So as committees begin to do their work, you do have

someone who's kind of keeping an eye on everything

that's happening and maybe helping to coordinate a

little bit as those bills move through committee and,

who knows, potentially come to the floor.

Leaders in Washington are relying on the industry

itself for some of the answers.

The White House has garnered commitments from 15

companies to drive safe development of AI.

You know, smart regulation can be helpful.

It can actually even speed up the adoption of

technologies and protect people from harms.

But at the same time, overregulating can be

harmful and slow down adoption.

The US government appears to be moving slower on

regulation when compared to its peers.

For example, in March 2024, the European Union banned

high risk uses of artificial intelligence,

which includes applications in critical infrastructure,

health care, banking, the justice system and

education.

The folks in Brussels, they come up with a lot of

bureaucratic rules that make it harder for companies

to innovate. The entrepreneurial environment

isn't there the way it is in the United States.

Which means that Americans may be more exposed to the

ups and downs of AI as the technology advances.

I think what you're going to probably see is what you see

for a lot of other issues.

You're going to be seeing Republicans taking the route

of less regulation, more room for creativity, for

growth, and for the economy.

And then for Democrats, you're going to see kind of

more of a concern. Is AI trying to discriminate

against anyone? Could this be something that actually

winds up hurting people rather than helping them?

The critical question, the one that I would, you know,

urge policymakers to consider is how do we

support the people whose jobs are affected in a smart

way, and so that it becomes truly a positive outcome for

the whole of society?

There will be a time in the future.

Where robots can do most of what humans currently do.

We're not there yet.

Over time, we're going to have to update our tax

system and even move to systems like Universal Basic

Income that make sure everybody get a share of the

benefits that are created.