The U.S. government is considering laws to assist society adapt to the introduction of artificial intelligence.
Early users of the technology are already seeing labor productivity gains. For instance, Klarna, a buy now, pay later financial services provider, estimates that its AI assistant tool will increase its profit end result by $40 million by the end of 2024.
“It principally does the job of 700 full-time agents,” Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski said in an interview with CNBC. “It principally was able to caring for two-thirds of all the incoming errands that we’ve got over chat.”
Klarna’s AI assistant tool is built on OpenAI’s systems, which power each ChatGPT and Sora — two products which have captured the attention of each the general public and Congress.
In 2023, members of Congress convened panels, private dinners, and learning sessions with high-profile tech executives including Sam Altman, CEO at OpenAI. The White House followed up by looking for commitment from 15 private industry leaders to assist lawmakers understand the best approach to discover risks and make use of the latest technologies. The list includes a few of the biggest players in the tech sector, alongside newcomers corresponding to Anthropic and OpenAI.
The Senate Task Force on AI, established in 2019, has passed a minimum of 15 bills into law that concentrate on research and risk assessment. But in comparison with measures passed by the European Union in 2024, the U.S. regulatory environment appears to be relatively relaxed.
“The parents in Brussels, they provide you with plenty of bureaucratic rules that make it harder for firms to innovate,” Erik Brynjolfsson, a senior fellow at Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI, said in an interview with CNBC. “The entrepreneurial environment is not there the way it is in the United States.”
Economists have apprehensive for years that artificial intelligence could sink job prospects for white-collar employees, much like the effects globalization has had on blue-collar employees in the past. A study from the International Monetary Fund suggests that a minimum of 60% of labor in advanced economies can be exposed to changes that stem from the wide adoption of artificial intelligence.
In 2023, lawmakers in the Recent York State Assembly recommend a measure to limit the expected impact of tech-driven layoffs with robot taxes. The concept is to introduce a price for firms that use technology to displace employees inside the state. As of April 2024, the bill stays in committee with an uncertain future.
Many economists have said that robot taxes, if used in any respect, needs to be set at a comparatively low level. In the U.S. each employers and employees face payroll taxes of seven.65% of income. But the optimal rate for a robot tax can be between 1% and three.7%, in accordance with researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
“It’s good for us to have output and productivity. And so I’m undecided we wish to tax those,” said Brynjolfsson. “Robots are a part of what boost technological growth and provides us that higher productivity.”
“There will likely be a time in the future where robots can do most of what humans currently do,” Brynjolfsson said. “We’re not there yet.”
Watch the video above to learn more about the U.S. government’s plan to control artificial intelligence.