The Future of AI Policy Is the Future of Competing Demands

Right now, policymakers are contending with decisions to optimize the benefits of artificial intelligence (AI) while ensuring that key pillars of safety, data privacy, and worker well-being are supported. Realizing the gains from AI does not come without tough choices, particularly when addressing how quickly AI is developed and adopted by sectors of the economy.

RAND’s Social and Economic Policy Rethink Initiative has developed a volume of work on the opportunities and challenges presented by AI adoption. This volume aims to support policy, industry, and community leaders as they confront key questions:

• What are the social and economic policy stakes for AI adoption?
• What types of AI adoption tradeoffs will policymakers need to manage?
• How can policymakers map AI impacts to develop agile AI responses?

Overall, we find tremendous potential upsides, with an urgent need to manage downside risks. Looking at macroeconomic impacts, we see potential gains for productivity growth and the federal debt, but even with the best analysis, there is limited visibility into impacts on the labor market.

But these productivity gains must be balanced against questions about how human flourishing is being supported and what that means for the social contract. Managing risks and challenges that extend to privacy, oversight, and potential societal polarization requires careful management and a need to protect individual rights and democratic processes. Managing challenges while enabling opportunities will require new metrics for understanding the complex, multidimensional impacts of AI adoption on the labor market, macroeconomy, and society.