White House Economist Dismisses AI Job Losses as 'Science Fiction' After Market Turmoil

White House Economist Calls Citrini AI Report 'Science Fiction'

A top White House economist dubbed the weekend report about artificial intelligence risks that had roiled the stock market "science fiction." The paper from Citrini Research imagines a 2028 world in which rapid advances in machine intelligence turbocharge productivity but render large swaths of human labor obsolete -- sparking job losses, collapsing consumer spending and dragging down stock indexes like the S&P 500. Pierre Yared, the acting chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said the paper violates basic economics to say that AI will destroy jobs because it's so productive. "The Citrini report is an interesting piece of science fiction -- and I like science fiction," Yared said in a brief interview after speaking at the National Association for Business Economics in Washington. "But I think that if you really look at it, and think long and hard about it, it violates some of the basic identities in economics." Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has often said that modern economic history shows that increases in investment are followed by increases in employment, and that he anticipates the same with AI. Trump's Vision Earlier at the NABE conference, Yared said that "overall, the administration's position on AI is to lean into it" and to ensure the US can "dominate" internationally. Bessent and other top officials have hailed the investment surge in the field as a parallel to the 1990s internet and personal-computing boom, which underpinned that era's strong growth, low unemployment and contained inflation. Shortly after he took office last year, President Donald Trump scrapped an AI policy established by predecessor Joe Biden that set safety and transparency requirements for AI developers.

White House Economist Rejects AI Doomsday Fears | PYMNTS.com

By completing this form, you agree to receive marketing communications from PYMNTS and to the sharing of your information with our sponsor, if applicable, in accordance with our Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions. The report, published by Citrini Research on Sunday (Feb. 22), shook the stock market on Monday (Feb. 23) by saying that if AI makes a lot of human labor obsolete, there could be job losses as well as drops in consumer spending and the stock market, according to the Bloomberg report. Asked about this speculation by Bloomberg, Pierre Yared, the acting chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said: "AI can either be a groundbreaking innovation that increases production, increases income" and expenditure, "or it can be an innovation that ends up not delivering on its promise." PYMNTS reported in September that the big question right now is: How will AI impact jobs? The report noted that as AI technologies evolve at warp speed, there is major angst over whether they will fuel mass unemployment. At the same time, some observers believe that the technology will lead to an upskilling of workers rather than an elimination of jobs. The PYMNTS Intelligence report "Wage to Wallet Index: Measuring the Labor Economy's Impact on U.S. Financial and Economic Health" found that workers who could be most exposed to automation are not acting as though humanoid robots are about to displace them at scale. The report found that among Labor Economy workers -- the consumer group made up of mostly hourly workers who make under $50,000 a year -- a clear majority continue to believe their skills will remain relevant as technology evolves. The White House released a policy roadmap in July that outlines President Donald Trump's push to keep America in the lead in the global AI race by focusing on deregulation, building AI infrastructure, expanding export controls and giving chatbots free speech. "As our global competitors race to exploit these technologies, it is a national security imperative for the United States to achieve and maintain unquestioned and unchallenged global technological dominance," Trump said in the opening page of "America's AI Action Plan."