AI Must Enlarge the Economy, Not Divide It

CAMBRIDGE/PARIS— More than 200 economists and AI researchers, including 16 Nobel laureates, have signed the We Must Act Now statement, warning that AI could reshape the global economy on a scale larger than the Industrial Revolution—and far more quickly. We were among the signatories, but recognizing the stakes does not settle the question of how AI should be developed. One of the statement’s central claims is that AI should be steered toward complementing humans rather than imitating them. That distinction is more consequential than it may seem.

Complementing humans is not a matter of sentiment but a strategy for creating new markets. AI complements humans when it enlarges the set of things worth doing, broadens access by lowering costs, and enables people to do what was previously out of reach. It substitutes for them when it simply transfers certain tasks from workers to models. One path expands the economic pie; the other merely redistributes value. The purpose of AI is expansion, and policy should encourage it in that direction.