Patrick Hedger, director of policy at NetChoice, points out that all technological revolutions disrupt labor markets to some extent; it is just a matter of adjusting.
"I don't think it's a good idea for the country to hold ourselves back from the most revolutionary new technology that any of us will experience in our lifetimes when there are things that we can do to make sure that folks that do have their jobs disrupted can transition into new roles," Hedger tells AFN.
NetChoice is a trade association that works to make the internet safe for free enterprise and free expression.
Hedger recommends educating people on how to create workers who can utilize AI.
"There are lots of job training programs and incentives being created by the companies that are actually building AI systems," he notes. "We also have to look at the fact that AI is creating a lot of new types of jobs as well as demand for existing jobs in the skilled trades."
The comments come amid a growing fear about whether AI is it driven by the entertainment industry or by something else.
"This may feel like a unique moment because this isn't something that a lot of us have really ever lived through," Hedger recognizes. "But if you look at the historical records … about older technologies [like] the widespread use and adaptation of electricity itself, there were a lot of concerns about labor market displacements."
"As we all know now, electricity has enabled us to create a lot of new types of jobs in entire new industries," he says.
Hedger thinks AI will have a similar effect.
He also believes President Donald Trump "is absolutely right that we face a binary choice" in terms of who is going to lead the world in this "true general-purpose technology" that Hedger says will be in every industry and everything.
He says the Europeans have already regulated themselves out of the race; they do not have any sort of companies that are able to build the types of AI systems that American companies and their Chinese counterparts can.
"I think it's critical that we win this AI race, much like we won the internet race," he concludes, noting that today's internet has been built, shaped and dominated by American values.
