According to iThome and CNA reports, a group of economists and tech industry figures launched a statement on Monday, July 13, titled 'We Must Act Now,' warning that AI could reshape the economy faster than society can adapt. The statement has drawn support from over 200 signatories, including 16 Nobel laureates and executives from Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI.
What is the background of this joint statement, and who are its main initiators?
According to iThome, a group of economists and tech industry figures launched a campaign this past Monday, July 13, for a statement titled We Must Act Now—A Statement on AI's Transformation of the Economy, arguing that AI could become far more powerful than it is today within the next 10 years 1. The statement was co-founded by four economists: Erik Brynjolfsson, Ajay Agrawal, Anton Korinek, and Tom Cunningham 2. iThome reports the statement has so far drawn support from hundreds of experts and scholars, including 16 Nobel laureates and many AI researchers 6.
What is the core concern among economists and tech leaders about the speed of AI's economic impact?
According to iThome, Erik Brynjolfsson, director of the Stanford Digital Economy Lab (史丹佛大學數位經濟實驗室), said that "AI's capabilities are improving far faster than our understanding of its economic impact. This gap represents the greatest opportunity of our time. We must act now to steer AI toward complementing humans rather than merely imitating them, and to ensure prosperity benefits the many, not the few" 3.
Nobel laureate in economics Michael Spence added that "the scale, scope, and pace of AI's technological progress, combined with high uncertainty over the extent and timing of its impact across every sector of the economy, means broad participation from all sectors is needed to steer AI in a direction that benefits society" 4.
Co-founder Anton Korinek framed the urgency in historical terms, noting that "the steam engine, electricity, and computers all gave society decades to adapt, but AI may leave people with only a few years. Waiting until the transformation has already happened to hastily build strategies and institutions is often too late" 5.
Which prominent figures and institutions have backed the statement?
According to CNA (Central News Agency), more than 200 economists and AI researchers signed an open letter on July 13 calling for immediate action to build incentives and safeguards to address the risk that AI could reshape the economy and push more people into unemployment 7. CNA reports the letter was co-signed by leading economists, computer scientists, and executives from tech companies including Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI 8.
AI research pioneer Yoshua Bengio is also among the signatories. According to CNA, Bengio said that based on current AI development trends, AI is "highly likely to substantially transform our economy" 11.
What does the statement predict about the scale of AI-driven economic transformation, and what does it demand?
CNA reports the open letter states that over the next 10 years, as AI becomes more powerful, it "may drive an unprecedented economic transformation — larger in scale and faster in pace than the Industrial Revolution. This could bring the risk of mass unemployment, but also opportunities such as significantly higher living standards" 9.
Despite the weight of its subject matter, CNA notes the open letter itself is only four sentences long, calling on leaders to "establish the incentives, safeguards, and institutions needed to steer AI toward assisting humanity and benefiting society" 10. Bengio went further, arguing that "we must make deliberate, collective, and democratic decisions, rather than letting market forces dictate the outcome and risk leaving the majority of people far behind" 12.
Key figures at a glance
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|
| Launch date | Monday, July 13 | iThome 1 / CNA 7 |
| Co-founders of the statement | 4 economists (Brynjolfsson, Agrawal, Korinek, Cunningham) | iThome 2 |
| Signatories reported by iThome | Hundreds of experts, incl. 16 Nobel laureates | iThome 6 |
| Signatories reported by CNA | Over 200 economists and AI researchers | CNA 7 |
| Length of the open letter | 4 sentences | CNA 10 |
What this means
Taken together, the two reports describe the same July 13 campaign from different vantage points: iThome emphasizes the academic architecture behind the statement — its four economist co-founders and the 16 Nobel laureates who have since signed on (E1, E2, E6) — while CNA emphasizes the coalition's reach into industry, noting signatories from Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI alongside more than 200 economists and researchers (E7, E8). The urgency expressed by Korinek — that AI may leave only a few years for adaptation, compared to decades for steam power, electricity, and computing 5 — is echoed in the letter's own claim that the coming transformation could be larger and faster than the Industrial Revolution 9. Yet for a statement addressing a transformation of that scale, the operative document itself is strikingly brief, running just four sentences 10 and ending with Bengio's call for collective, democratic decision-making rather than reliance on market forces alone 12.