Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark said on Saturday that one of the company's internal models forecasts US economic output rising almost 50% by 2030 under certain conditions.
By the numbers: Clark put the potential figure at $44 trillion against a current level of just over $30 trillion. He told the room it "sounds very outlandish, I know."
The backstory: Clark, a former journalist who serves as Anthropic's head of public benefit, was lecturing hundreds of government and finance officials at the IMF and World Bank annual meetings in Bangkok. The company is preparing an initial public offering expected in November that could value it at up to $2 trillion.
- The forecast assumes the technology keeps getting better, and Clark said growth of that size would require new industries and inventions to have been created to power it.
Yes, but: Clark also warned of a singularity in which AI development outpaces human control, and said the window to impose safeguards has narrowed to a small number of years. He called for international cooperation on "unusual and serious rules" for the technology.
- "Being able to use AI for science opens us up to the misuses of science as well, biological and cyber weapons and things we cannot yet imagine, and we have many choices to make," he said.
The other side: Officials at the meetings raised the opposite risk: that AI falls short as a productivity game-changer, stock valuations crash, jobs disappear and some countries get left behind. Clark conceded AI is cutting roles in call centres and customer service while adding them in scientific research.
Why it matters: A 50% jump in output inside four years would reset wages, tax receipts and asset prices, and the company asking policymakers to plan for it is weeks away from selling shares to the public on that same premise.
