IMF Warns: AI Could Have a Disruptive Impact on Employment and Tax Systems

Odaily News: IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva warned that AI is having a disruptive impact on labor markets and tax systems, and policymakers need to rethink education systems and take immediate action to help society adapt to the changes. Speaking Monday at the debut of the IMF and World Bank annual meetings in Bangkok, Georgieva said: "It is a slow-moving tsunami, but it is still a tsunami." At a conference on AI's impact on employment, she said AI has already weakened demand for some human workers by replacing large numbers of repetitive, routine jobs, while also driving an increase in low-wage positions in industries such as construction — which she said "is not something to celebrate." Georgieva said this transformation will have profound implications for public finances, with the risk that AI could shift the economy from labor toward capital, thereby eroding government tax revenues, since labor income has traditionally been an important tax base. (Jinshi)