Digital Futures Project

Transforming Economies and Improving Lives Through AI

Overview

Expanding economic opportunities for all

AI represents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to achieve durable economic growth and broader prosperity that benefits everyone. Already, we're seeing its potential to create new jobs and expand opportunity to communities or regions traditionally left behind. But as with prior technological changes, AI can be a disruptive force. To ensure AI’s benefits are widely shared across the workforce, regions and sectors, all of us – government, industry, civil society – need intentional strategies.

Digital Futures Project with support from Google.org

As part of the Digital Futures Project, Google.org established a fund to provide grants to leading think tanks, academic institutions, and private sector stakeholders around the world to facilitate dialogue around this important technology – including AI’s potential to create economic opportunity. Researchers' views are independent and intended to advance public understanding of these issues. Google does not endorse any specific proposals or recommendations.

Like other technologies that now power our modern economy, AI has the potential to boost innovation in ways that benefit everyone. People and businesses of all sizes – and across all roles, industries, and regions – are already using AI to innovate, improve and grow.

AI can also expand opportunity to communities or regions traditionally left behind by technology, breaking down language barriers and bridging skills gaps, providing there is collaboration and investment in infrastructure, skilling and providing widespread access.

Research funded by Google.org as part of the Digital Futures Project explores a broad range of questions, challenges and potential benefits for workers and economies. It indicates that there are common factors that will determine how AI can lift people up and improve lives around the globe:

The need to invest in AI infrastructure and ecosystems that support future AI innovation
The importance of developing strategies that support the workforce of today and tomorrow to prepare for AI-enabled jobs, and;
The need to promote widespread access and adoption of AI tools

A combination of local, state, and federal initiatives will be necessary to spread AI innovation and productivity gains more broadly across the U.S. …Such initiatives should focus on improving the distribution of AI-related R&D, widening access to computing power and data, supporting the emergence of an AI workforce, and promoting the emergence of AI clusters in new places. Through intentional engagements along these lines, the U.S. may well be able to align an AI revolution with benefits that are socially and geographically distributed across the nation.

— Mark Muro, Julian Jacobs, and Sifan Liu, Brookings Institution.

The importance of investing in AI infrastructure and AI ecosystems

Researchers have found that infrastructure challenges, like a lack of data centers or internet connection, are currently limiting factors for much of the world to fully access the economic opportunity that AI has the power to create. Even in areas with AI-ready infrastructure, there is still a need for ecosystems that enable AI innovation and develop research and engineering talent. In order to thrive, AI ecosystems will require both financial investments and smart regulations.

From students crafting essays and engineers writing code to call center operators responding to customers, generative artificial intelligence tools have prompted a wave of experimentation over the past year that have raised questions about how these tools can change the way we live and work.

— MIT Industrial Performance Center.

The necessity of supporting the workforce of today and tomorrow, and to prepare for AI-enabled jobs

As AI is adopted by employers of all kinds around the world, researchers are trying to understand how these new technologies are being used in practice and how the workforce is adapting to these changes. Research emphasizes the importance of integrating digital skills training into education curricula and developing resources to prepare or retrain workers so that they have the skills needed to thrive in the AI-powered workplace of the future.

Technology can do more than simply automate existing processes task-by-task. It can also be used to support new ways of achieving a system’s ultimate goal, by creating new processes that increase productivity and generate new human tasks along the way.

— Laura Nurski, Centre for European Policy Studies.

The impact of promoting access to and widespread adoption of AI

The research is clear that the widespread adoption of AI, if done right, will create more opportunities and benefits for individuals and economies around the globe. But no single nation, no single industry, and no single company will be able to build the AI future on their own. It will take collaboration and deep engagement - from the global to the local level - to maximize the access and adoption of AI to ensure the benefit of all.

Supported research on AI enabled opportunities

We need to work together to ensure no one is left behind and everyone can benefit from AI. The Digital Futures Project funded research that explores AI’s potential to create economic opportunity and the steps needed to ensure that potential is fulfilled. Learn more about the research and recommendations below.

Cited resources