Fearing Mass A.I. Layoffs, Some in Congress Eye Methods to Help Employees


Mr. Trump’s prime aides have dismissed any suggestion that A.I. may trigger mass layoffs. In distinction, many Democrats nonetheless see wide-scale unemployment as a rising menace, and in response, celebration leaders have pursued measures meant to assist People affected by technological change.

The roster of payments consists of an try by Senator Mark Kelly, Democrat of Arizona, to tax tech giants’ earnings for a brand new federal belief. That will assist fund advantages and coaching for displaced employees. One other, by lawmakers together with Consultant Greg Casar, Democrat of Texas, would tax tech firms and channel the proceeds to job-creating infrastructure investments.

However these efforts to spice up the federal security web face an excellent harder political climb, given long-simmering disputes between the events in regards to the function of presidency and the availability of federal advantages. The result’s a kind of stasis on Capitol Hill, regardless of a “excessive degree of hysteria” on each side of the aisle over job losses, in line with Gina Raimondo, the chief of Increase Us, a nonprofit targeted on A.I. coverage.

“My nice fear, really, is that they’ll do what Congress usually does, which is wait till it’s too late,” added Ms. Raimondo, whose group is backed by firms, together with these in A.I., in addition to labor teams and different foundations. She previously served as commerce secretary beneath President Joseph R. Biden Jr.

There’s additionally the thornier political query of who, precisely, ought to pay for it.

A handful of tech giants, together with Anthropic and OpenAI, have publicly supported concepts that will put aside a few of their anticipated new riches for People, particularly these displaced by synthetic intelligence. This week, Anthropic introduced it might put aside a portion of its inventory for a “public profit fund,” and Elon Musk, the founding father of SpaceX, adopted by promising to offer away shares to “each child in America.”

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