The key facts

  • Daron Acemoglu: if current AI development rates persist, the labor market may disappear within the next ten years.
  • In his view, the threat concerns not only employment but also democracy.
  • He called for reorienting AI development toward the needs of employees.

A warning from the Nobel laureate

Nobel Prize in Economics laureate Daron Acemoglu warned that if artificial intelligence development continues at its current pace, the creation of super-high intelligence within the next ten years could lead to the disappearance of the labor market. According to him, the ultimate goal of the AI industry is the creation of super-high intelligence surpassing human capabilities. He added that if humanity comes close to such a technology, not only the workforce but also democracy may disappear.

“There will be no labor market left”

“If we even come close to such super-high intelligence, there will be no labor market left — there will only be workers, narrowly specialized engineers, or entrepreneurs... This threat will not appear today or tomorrow, but it may arise within the next ten years,” Kun.uz quotes Acemoglu as saying. He called for fundamentally changing the direction of AI technology development, adapting it to the needs of workers.

About the economist

Daron Acemoglu is a Turkish-American economist, professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a member of the economic growth program of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, as well as of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the US National Academy of Sciences, and the Turkish Academy of Sciences. In 2024, together with Simon Johnson and James Robinson, he received the Nobel Prize in Economics “for studies of how institutions are formed and affect prosperity.”