Economists warn on AI job displacement

More than 200 economists, AI researchers, and technology leaders, including 16 Nobel laureates, signed an open letter organized by Stanford University's Digital Economy Lab titled 'We Must Act Now: A Statement on AI's Transformation of the Economy.' The letter warns that AI could become radically more powerful over the next decade, driving an economic transformation larger than the Industrial Revolution but unfolding much faster. It highlights risks of large-scale job displacement alongside opportunities for gains in living standards. The signatories call on governments, policymakers, and technology leaders to build incentives, guardrails, and institutions to steer AI toward complementing humans and benefiting society. Notable signatories include Yoshua Bengio, Eric Schmidt, Reid Hoffman, Vinod Khosla, Yann LeCun, and executives from Anthropic, Alphabet Inc., and OpenAI. The statement comes amid ongoing job cuts at major tech companies, with Microsoft eliminating about 4,800 jobs and over 120,000 tech workers laid off in 2026. A separate survey found 99% of business executives expect AI to reduce headcount in the next two years.