In a joint statement, over 200 researchers and executives said the technology could transform the economy significantly and rapidly, creating “major gains in living standards” but also “large-scale job displacement.” Signatories include Canadian AI pioneer Yoshua Bengio; Nobel-winning economists Daron Acemoglu, Joseph Stiglitz and Ben Bernanke; and AI executives like Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark, OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar and Google DeepMind chief scientist Jeff Dean. University of Toronto professor Ajay Agrawal was among the organizers. (The Logic)

Talking point: The statement says policymakers and other leaders “must act now to understand the economics of transformative AI,” and to create “incentives, guardrails and institutions” to ensure the technology helps society. But signatories have a wide range of views on what those economics will look like, and how quickly they’ll play out. Acemoglu, who is AI skeptical, predicts it won’t boost productivity much, or soon. Meanwhile, Stanford University professor Chad Jones, another signatory, says it could greatly accelerate economic growth rates.