About 200 economists, big tech executives and artificial intelligence (AI) researchers have issued an open letter urging pre-emptive policy responses from governments and industry, warning that AI could lead to large-scale job displacement in the future.

Business Insider reported on Sunday that the open letter, led by Stanford Digital Economy Lab, was signed by about 200 economists, policy experts and people linked to AI companies.

Titled "Act Now", the letter says AI could develop into a much more powerful technology over the next decade and that institutions and safeguards must be put in place quickly to match it.

The signatories expect AI could bring economic change on a scale comparable to the Industrial Revolution, but at a much faster pace than in the past. They said AI could become radically more powerful over the next decade. They said this would offer an opportunity to significantly raise living standards while also delivering an unprecedented shock to the labour market.

The letter acknowledges AI's positive effects in boosting productivity and economic growth, but says the possibility of large-scale job displacement should be treated as a separate policy task. It stresses the importance of building an institutional foundation so that AI can complement human labour and benefit society as a whole, rather than trying to block technological progress.

The list of signatories includes former Google CEO Eric Schmidt (에릭 슈미트), LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman (리드 호프먼), Nobel economics laureates Joseph Stiglitz (조지프 스티글리츠), Daron Acemoglu (대런 아제모을루) and Simon Johnson (사이먼 존슨). Business Insider said more than 12 Nobel laureates took part in the letter.

Leading figures from the AI industry also added their names. They include Google's chief AI scientist Jeff Dean (제프 딘), Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark (잭 클라크) and OpenAI Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar (세라 프라이어).

What they are calling for is not a halt to AI development or technology regulation. The letter proposes that economists, policymakers and technology companies work together to accurately analyse AI's economic impact and set incentives, safeguards and institutions so that AI can be used to raise human productivity. It also stresses that managing the impact of technology on the labour market and economic structure through policy is a more urgent task than an AI performance race.

The signatories argue that institutions should be designed so that gains from higher productivity can spread across society, while policies should also be 마련 to reduce the risk of employment declines caused by AI.

The open letter is also being assessed as an example showing that discussion of AI is expanding beyond technology safety and competition among companies to the labour market, income distribution and the overall economic system.

It is also notable that academics, big tech companies and people linked to AI development organisations took part together. The signatories stressed that as the pace at which AI changes the economy could accelerate faster than expected, responses to labour market shocks should be made through advance design rather than after-the-fact measures.

Attention now is on whether this awareness will lead to actual policy. The letter warns that AI could bring economic changes bigger than the Industrial Revolution, but over a much shorter period. It expects that how quickly governments and technology companies build institutions and incentive systems to ease job shocks that may arise during the spread of AI will become a key task in the AI era.