Greg Jensen, co-CIO of Bridgewater Associates, compares the current AI expansion to the period immediately preceding the COVID-19 pandemic. He suggests that despite numerous warnings about potential risks, there is currently insufficient urgency regarding the societal impact of these technologies.
Bridgewater analysis predicts that AI advancements could displace up to 18% of US jobs within five years. Given the US labor force of approximately 160 million people, this shift would impact tens of millions of workers across various sectors of the economy.
Jensen notes that capital expenditure related to AI now accounts for roughly one-third of recent US economic growth. He characterizes the current investment phase as increasingly dangerous due to the simultaneous acceleration of demand for physical infrastructure, such as data centers and energy systems.
To address potential economic disruption, Jensen proposed a token tax in the New York Times. This mechanism would tax the computational resources processed by large language models. He also advocates for holding AI developers and corporations legally and criminally liable for damages caused by their systems.
