FILE PHOTO: Economic Counsellor and Director of the Research Department at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Gita Gopinath poses for a picture after an interview with Reuters in the Alpine resort of Davos, Switzerland May 23, 2022. REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann
(Reuters) - IMF First Deputy Managing Director Gita Gopinath has warned of "substantial disruptions in labour markets" stemming from generative artificial intelligence and called on policymakers to quickly craft rules to govern the technology, the Financial Times reported on Monday.
"We need governments, we need institutions and we need policymakers to move quickly on all fronts, in terms of regulation, but also in terms of preparing for probably substantial disruptions in labour markets," Gopinath said in an interview to FT.
She also advocated for governments to bolster "social safety nets" for workers affected by the adoption of AI, while working on tax policies that do not reward companies replacing employees with machines.
Gopinath cautioned policymakers to be careful in case some corporations emerge with an unassailable position in the new technology.
"You don't want to have supersized companies with huge amounts of data and computing power that have an unfair advantage," Gopinath told the newspaper.
(Reporting by Kanjyik Ghosh in Bengaluru)
