AI open letters shift from warnings to push for business action
A recent statement signed by more than 200 economists and AI experts signals a shift from abstract warnings to actionable concerns about workplace transformation and readiness.
The "We Must Act Now" letter, published July 13 and signed by more than 200 economists and AI technologists, focuses on AI's potential for "unprecedented" economic transformation and "large-scale job displacement." That emphasis is different from many previous statements that focused on AI's ethical considerations or the safety risks of increasingly intelligence systems.
At fewer than 100 words, this letter fits the general pattern of previous open letters: It warns about the risks of AI, making overarching statements that spark conversation but providing limited guidance toward concrete action.
However, individuals who signed the letter are thought leaders in their fields, including 16 Nobel Laureates and top AI researchers from several universities, such as MIT, Harvard, Stanford and the University of Toronto. Signatories from the industry included Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar and venture capitalist Vinod Khosla.
"That letter's notable signers signal that AI concerns have moved from 'Will this happen?' to 'We don't have the institutions to handle it when it does,'" said Tamarah Usher, senior director of AI innovation at Slalom, a business and technology consulting company. "For businesses, the practical takeaway is don't wait for policy to catch up."
Similarly, Niloy Ray, co-chair of employment law firm Littler's AI practice said he sees "a letter or a position statement like this as valuable in that it may be cited by those supporting those positions." Supporters might see the individuals signing the letter as providing some validity or heft to their position, he said.
Short on details but some practical steps
The July 13 letter is short on details for technology and business leaders. That's typical of the genre, according to AI strategists and advisors. "Warning letters like this one are good at getting attention and bad at prescribing action," Usher said.
The letter's most useful line for business leaders is the call to build 'incentives, guardrails and institutions.'
Tamarah UsherSenior director of AI innovation, Slalom
On the attention side, the July 13 letter stated that "AI may become radically more powerful over the next 10 years" and "could drive an unprecedented transformation of our economy, larger than the Industrial Revolution, but unfolding over a vastly shorter time frame."
That said, the statement goes on to point to some practical and immediate measures. Its main call to action is that "economists, policymakers and technology leaders must act now to understand the economics of transformative AI" and to build structures to guide AI deployment in a socially beneficial way.
"The letter's most useful line for business leaders is the call to build 'incentives, guardrails and institutions,'" Usher said. "Right now, most companies are making AI adoption decisions without a clear picture of where it's actually substituting for workers versus complementing them."
That problem is solvable today, she added, noting that it "doesn't require waiting for economists or policymakers to figure out the macro picture first."
Ray said the statement's call for economic understanding is more practical than earlier calls for an AI moratorium. Those include the Future of Life Institute's 2023 letter calling for, at minimum, a 6-month pause on "training AI systems more powerful than GPT-4."
"One of the reasons the moratorium wasn't taken as seriously by the industry is that it was not practical, not feasible to do that," Ray said.
In contrast, Ray said the economists' letter "is more feasible: understanding the economics of AI, how it's going to transform and making sure this powerful technology is channeled correctly."
Additional details would be helpful from the signatories, however, Ray noted. "I hope they'll be able to step forward with some clear-eyed frameworks and processes that can bring about this … regulated transformation that they're hoping for," Ray said.
Lending weight to positions, policies
AI letters also serve as bids to influence policymakers. Another open letter on AI, the July 28 "Pacing the Frontier" statement, signed by more than 1,000 employees of frontier AI companies, explicitly addressed the policymakers. It asked the U.S. government to "support an international effort to develop the technical and governance tools needed to deliberately pace the frontier of automated AI development."
The statement, which seems more of an emergency break than a moratorium, included the signatures of Dario Amodei, CEO at Anthropic; Mark Chen, chief research officer at OpenAI; Anca Dragan, vice president of AI safety, alignment and collaboration at Google; and Shengjia Zhao, chief scientist at Meta AI.
Matt Kropp, managing director and senior partner at Boston Consulting Group (BCG), said he believes the "We Must Act Now" letter also is policy oriented.
"I don't know that the letter is going to have much of an impact for IT leaders, and I don't think that's the intent," he said. "They're really trying to influence policy makers."
Mark E. S. Bernard, a fractional/field chief information security officer and chief AI officer at Bernard Institute for Cybersecurity, based in Toronto, said he thinks policy specialists in the Canadian federal or provincial governments, as well as the economists he works with, probably read the AI warning letters.
"I am pretty sure they're looking at this," he said. "But until the government starts making some policy decisions around how they're going to handle this, the commercial sector will continue to go along and maybe talk about it in the background at the board meetings."
Decisive steps from the business sector are more likely once compliance requirements emerge. "The government says, 'This law is enacted now,' and they have to do the dance," Bernard said. "So, they are waiting for that to happen."
Next steps to consider
The policy wheels can turn rather slowly, however. But business and IT leaders can think about workforce measures in the meantime.
The companies that deploy the most tokens productively … will outcompete the companies that don't.
Matt KroppManaging director and senior partner, Boston Consulting Group
Usher said statements like "We Must Act Now" tend to move conversations faster than they move policy. She cited a few actions for businesses to consider as next steps:
Build internal measurement of AI's productivity and workforce effects.
Treat reskilling as a proactive investment, rather than a response to disruption.
Design AI deployment around augmenting roles, rather than defaulting to headcount reduction.
BCG research reinforced that last point, suggesting that AI will augment the work of many employees. The company published a study earlier this year estimating that AI will reshape 50% to 55% of U.S. worker roles, with augmentation being one of the mechanisms for doing so. AI task substitution could largely eliminate about 12% of jobs, while the remaining roles will have limited exposure to AI automation, according to BCG.
A separate BCG study found a correlation between AI token consumption and revenue growth in a sample of 107 public technology companies: Companies in the top token-use quintile saw 16.5% year-over-year revenue growth while those in the bottom quintile grew 5.1%.
"The companies that deploy the most tokens productively … will outcompete the companies that don't," Kropp said. "Embedded in that idea is that this isn't about substituting for labor. This is about empowering your employees to use AI intelligence in their jobs. It's about augmenting your people so that you can drive more growth."
John Moore is a freelance writer who has covered business and technology topics for 40 years. He focuses on enterprise IT strategy, AI adoption, data management and partner ecosystems.
