We Must Act Now AI statement urges human-complementing systems

More than 200 economists and artificial-intelligence researchers, including 16 Nobel laureates, have signed the We Must Act Now AI statement, according to a Project Syndicate commentary published July 31 by Mark Esposito and Aurélie Jean. The statement warns that AI could alter the global economy on a scale exceeding the Industrial Revolution, and at a faster pace.

Esposito and Jean, who said they were among the signatories, used the commentary to argue that the policy and investment question is not limited to whether AI advances, but what kind of economic role it is designed to play. They said AI should be directed toward expanding economic capacity by complementing people rather than replacing or imitating human work.

The authors framed the distinction as central to how the gains from AI may be distributed. In their view, systems built to augment workers can raise productivity while preserving a role for human judgment, skill and institutional knowledge. Systems designed mainly to substitute for labor could concentrate gains around capital owners and widen divides in the economy, they argued.

What is the We Must Act Now AI statement?

The We Must Act Now statement is a public warning signed by economists and AI researchers about the potential speed and scale of AI’s economic effects. According to Esposito and Jean, one of its main positions is that AI development should favor tools that work with humans rather than systems that attempt to replicate human labor.

The commentary identifies incentives as the mechanism that could determine which path dominates. Esposito and Jean argued that current economic rewards often favor capital over labor, making automation an attractive default for firms and investors. They called for incentives that reward augmentation and investment in human capability instead.

Augmentation, in this context, means using AI to extend what workers, professionals or institutions can do, rather than treating the technology as a direct substitute for people. The authors’ example is broad rather than sector-specific: AI’s full economic potential, they wrote, depends on steering the technology toward expansion.

The Project Syndicate commentary appeared in its innovation section and was filed from Cambridge and Paris. It did not provide forecasts for output, employment or investment flows, and it did not specify policy instruments for changing incentives. Its reported contribution is a public economic argument: AI’s effect on growth and distribution will depend on design choices, institutional incentives and whether the technology is deployed to complement human capability.

For investors, operators and policymakers, the argument places labor-market structure alongside model performance and capital spending as a core variable in AI adoption. Esposito and Jean’s position is that the next phase of AI development should be assessed not only by efficiency gains, but also by whether it enlarges the productive base of the economy.

This story draws on original reporting from Project Syndicate.