New $500 million initiative retrains workers for AI future

Josh Boak, The Independent

The United States is hurtling towards an artificial intelligence-driven future, largely unprepared for the potential for widespread job displacement. While some warn of "doomsday scenarios" reminiscent of science fiction, proponents argue AI will create unprecedented wealth, downplaying concerns over mass layoffs. Now, a new bipartisan nonprofit is stepping in, aiming to secure AI's economic benefits for America without sacrificing its workforce. RAISE US, backed by over $500 million, plans to invest in innovative education and training programs, prioritising partnerships with states and major employers over federal involvement.

Co-founded by former Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, a Democrat, and former Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb, a Republican, the organisation seeks to pilot initiatives and incentives designed to help American workers transition into new roles within an increasingly automated economy. "We're talking about a certain level of unemployment that could destabilise our country and our democracy," Raimondo stated in an interview. "If you want to lead the world in AI, you have to take action to make sure our democracy doesn't crumble."

The programmes will first start in Arkansas, Maryland, Utah and ConnecticutThe nonprofit is initially partnering with officials in Arkansas, Connecticut, Maryland and Utah, along with several of America's largest companies and charitable organisations. The group intends to develop policies that connect schools more closely to employers, so that layoffs can be replaced by the potential for new jobs with higher incomes. They also are exploring changes to corporate taxes and other incentives with the goal of keeping people working. "Good things tend to happen when you convert have-nots into haves," Holcomb said.

Among the companies serving as anchor partners with RAISE US are Amazon, Microsoft, Anthropic, the OpenAI Foundation and Bank of America. Other employers involved in the project include UPS, General Motors, Eli Lilly, Mastercard, chipmaker AMD, Cisco and IBM. Raimondo, the former Democratic governor of Rhode Island who played a formative role in setting AI policy as the Biden administration's commerce secretary, will be the nonprofit's CEO. The advisory board includes former Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan, billionaire investment manager Stephen Schwarzman, AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler and the economists David Autor, Erik Brynjolfsson and Raj Chetty.

AI has the potential to displace human workers from factories to officesAn April analysis by the Boston Consulting Group estimated that roughly half of US jobs will be reshaped by AI over the next few years. The analysis said that as many as 25 million jobs could be eliminated in the US over the next five years. Goldman Sachs, in March, separately released an estimate that a quarter of US work hours could be automated by AI. More than just a glorified search engine or a generator of video clips and novelty images, AI could fill roads with driverless trucks, create factories staffed by robots and supplant office workers, lawyers and doctors. President Donald Trump has expressed little anxiety about the possibility of AI displacing human workers.

Asked on Tuesday ahead of touring a Mack Trucks factory in Pennsylvania if AI could cause truckers to lose their jobs, Trump told a reporter, "Right now, they're not." The president has been banking on the buildout of AI data centers and power plants to drive hiring and overall economic growth. While AI-related investments have helped the economy, manufacturing has shed 68,000 jobs and the trucking transportation sector has cut 28,300 jobs since the start of Trump's second term, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. "We have, right now, so many jobs that are going to be available and the biggest problem we have is getting the people," Trump said. "So we're really doing spectacular."

Experts say education systems and labor policies aren't built for an AI economyAI experts have warned of gaps between the transformations that AI could create and a 20th century social safety net of unemployment insurance and four-year college that seems ill-prepared for the scope, scale and speed of the change. "AI is now disrupting multiple sectors simultaneously, faster than any institution can respond," said Vivienne Ming, a neuroscientist who has written the book, "Robot-Proof: When Machines Have all the Answers, Build Better People."

Ming said that she agrees with an argument by economists that the wealth generated by AI could create demand for more workers that could offset any job losses. But she said the skills that matter in an AI economy go beyond professions such as plumbing or construction and involve curiosity and intellectual flexibility. "Neither our education system nor our labor policies are building the foundational human capital that AI-era work actually requires," she said.

Raimondo said the new nonprofit wants to use states as a vehicle for testing ideas that Congress can later embrace as policies, paving the way for the possibility of more profound changes to both the tax code and the educational system. "I don't have a lot of hope for bold action by Congress in the next few years on this issue, and I don't think we can wait a few years," she said. "I also think there are many examples in history that when the federal government does take action, they will look around at what has been working in states. I feel pretty confident that they will look at the work that we've done."