By: AIF Staff
Washington, DC – Last week, AIF President Paul Ryan was named as the Co-Chair of the Commission on Artificial Intelligence and the Future of the American Workforce. The Commission, which is a joint effort undertaken by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and the Urban Institute, will spend the next year developing various policy recommendations and proposals to the challenges facing American workers with the increased adoption and utilization of Artificial Intelligence.
In a virtual event featuring Ryan, his Commission Co-Chair Secretary Gina Raimondo, AEI President Robert Doar, and Urban Institute President Sarah Rosen Wartell, Ryan answered questions on several topics related to the Commission and Artificial Intelligence.
Excerpts of Ryan’s responses, edited lightly for clarity, follow. Video of the Commission’s launch is accessible here.
Ryan on the Key Objectives of Commission on AI and the Future of American Workforce
“I’ve seen a lot of Commissions come and go. I’ve been on Commissions – ones that have been effective and meaningful, and ones that have fallen flat and collected dust, so I think there are three things we want to do.
We want to provide policymakers with solutions focusing on interoperability and economic growth, and show people from both sides of the aisle, from different parts of the political spectrum, coming together around a consensus so they can attract policymakers’ support.
We want to provide a forum. We want to provide a forum for a variety of views — from tech to labor, from left to right — to be represented on this Commission, to discuss complex components of the forthcoming revolution of AI, and to do it in a way that leads to consensus-driven ideas rather than delving into polarizing sound bites.
We want to be leading by example, providing a forum, promoting the consensus ideas that come from that, and then showcasing the high-quality work and the research of AEI and the Urban Institute….
[With] the kind of data, the kind of scholarly rigor that AEI and Urban have, and the kind of people we’re bringing on to this commission, which really is a great cross-section, I believe we can show policymakers real evidence-based solutions so that they can consider real policy responses.
Policy responses are going to occur. It doesn’t matter who’s running Congress, and we can show what consensus looks like and assist these policymakers by assembling this kind of evidence. I’ve seen very successful commissions, including those from outside of Congress, come to Congress and show policymakers a way forward. I think we can do just that.”
Ryan on Pope Leo’s recent Encyclical on AI:
“It’s very important that this Pope picked his name the way he picked it, because the prior Pope Leo, Leo XIII, wrote an encyclical, Rerum Novarum, during the Industrial Revolution to help society navigate labor and capital at a time of enormous upheaval.
This Pope, Leo XIV, wrote a fantastic encyclical. It is a timeless contribution. It’s called Magnifica Humanitas.
Now, a lot of non-Catholics don’t even know what encyclicals are or what they mean, but this is worthwhile reading for everybody who cares about the issue [of Artificial Intelligence]. It’s worthwhile reading for every American Catholic, every conservative, and quite frankly, anybody who cares about human dignity.
Popes don’t write technical jargon. It’s not a technical manual. He is reminding us that technology needs to serve the human person, not the other way around. He grounds the policy debate…. It is basically a clear, moral statement that grounds the policy debate in one core truth: Economic progress is meaningless if it breaks the dignity of the individual worker.
So, Pope Leo XIV is bringing a sense of moral clarity, which is exactly what we need as we meet these policy challenges not just in America, but across the world.”
Ryan on upskilling and augmenting America’s Workforce with AI
“I spend most of my time talking with CEOs and business leaders and I’ll make one macro policy observation: Our economic stabilizers that we have from state, local and federal governments are 100 years old.
They were written and built for a different time. So, what we’re going to do with this Commission is explore how do you change that approach so that it meets the moment? That’s the first point.
The second point is: I get basically 2 reactions from CEOs and employers. They’re excited and they’re intimidated. Most employers want to augment their workforce and skate to where the puck is going to be and seize opportunities.
What they’re worried about is that their competitor may use AI to cut labor costs and then outcompete them. So, they’re worried that this becomes a game where the first company who cuts labor costs wins, but they really don’t want to be first. That tension is really rising in this economy. I think there are going to be good solutions that can help get employers away from that thinking, because they really want to go toward augmentation….
The third point I’ll make is, and I spend a lot of my time specifically in this, there’s going to be a skilled labor renaissance in America…. America is reindustrializing. There’s going to be a renaissance of skilled workers. And the question is: How does that Renaissance play out in this new AI-augmented world?
There’s a slice of workers in the middle that are the most vulnerable. And so, I think there are a lot of good, private sector solutions to reskilling and upskilling that workforce, so they can seize those better jobs and have those new opportunities.”
To learn more about the Commission on Artificial Intelligence and the Future of the American Workforce, click here.