Kathryn Anne Edwards

If people are scared about AI today, then let's act on AI today.

It's going to put you at the same place that it would have put you about, you know, adoption of capital technology in manufacturing plants that reduce the number of manufacturing workers.

It would be the same thing that would have said mechanization of agricultural labor.

It's the same problem, but it's today.

A lot of people are going to lose their job and they don't know what they'll do after.

We have failed this moment before.

We don't have to fail at this time.

So I don't want to say that you're wrong.

I think that...

I think that if this is the moment and that is the mood, then that's what we should act on.

And it doesn't have to be the perfect diagnosis of labor market issues.

It doesn't have to be that there's overwhelming evidence that AI's destruction is already clear.

If it's something that will make the American economy and labor market better, something that will assuage the fear of American workers, it's the right thing to do.

The years will tell us just how right it was.

Yeah, let me start from the beginning.

Economy equals people, right?

The size of your economy is really well predicted by the number of people in it, but people don't have the same level of productivity or relationship to the economy.

You've got children, you've got old people.

So really, the more workers you have, the bigger your economy is.

And this is the basis for the economic returns for things like childcare.