Breaking

Over 1,700 Economists, Including 16 Nobel Laureates, Warn on Transformative AI: 'We Must Act Now'

July 15, 2026 at 12:18 EDT

Policy & Regulation
Recruiting & HR

More than 1,700 economists, policymakers and technology leaders have signed an open statement warning that artificial intelligence could reshape the global economy on a scale larger than the Industrial Revolution and urging immediate action to prepare for it. The declaration, titled "We Must Act Now" and spearheaded by Stanford economist Erik Brynjolfsson, launched earlier the same week with more than 200 signatures and has since grown to 1,775 names, including 16 Nobel laureates, according to reporting by Axios.

Open Statement · "We Must Act Now"

1,775 economists and tech leaders warn: AI could reshape the economy faster than the Industrial Revolution

Spearheaded by Stanford economist Erik Brynjolfsson, the declaration urges policymakers to act now — building the guardrails and institutions to steer transformative AI toward complementing humans, not displacing them.

1,775

signatories and growing

Nobel laureates among them

~10 yrs

horizon for a radically more powerful AI

Same scale, far shorter time

Comparable transformation — compressed into a fraction of the time

Decades

Industrial Revolution

~10 years

Transformative AI

A shift potentially larger than the Industrial Revolution — but unfolding over a vastly shorter span.

Three propositions

AI may become radically more powerful over the next ten years.

This could drive an unprecedented transformation — with risks like job displacement and gains in living standards.

Leaders must act now to build the incentives, guardrails and institutions to steer it.

Supporters

Today's focus on AGI amounts to an agenda for displacing humans. Steering AI toward human-complementary uses should be the first priority.

e.g. Daron Acemoglu

Critics

Preemptive intervention risks stifling innovation — as with the steam engine or nuclear power, don't regulate before the trajectory is clear.

e.g. John Cochrane

The open question: whether an unusually broad, cross-partisan coalition can turn a shared sense of urgency into concrete institutional and policy proposals.

Continue reading

The rest of this article is for AI News Blitz readers. Choose an option below to keep reading.