Daron Acemoğlu warns of AI risks to democracy and equality

Nobel laureate and MIT professor Daron Acemoğlu has issued a warning regarding the current trajectory of artificial intelligence, suggesting that it may be too late to intervene in 20 years if current trends continue.

Speaking with BBC World Service, Acemoğlu argued that the crisis facing liberal democracy is driven not only by political choices but by profound shifts in technology and the economy over the last half-century. He noted that while historical technological investments typically led to higher employment and wages, the modern automation-heavy model is failing to produce the same results, specifically reducing labor demand for blue-collar workers.

Acemoğlu criticized the current development of AI as a “top-down and undemocratic” process. He emphasized that while AI will transform nearly every aspect of life, the public is being excluded from decisions regarding its direction. This lack of agency affects billions of people living outside major technology hubs. While not entirely pessimistic, he cautioned that technology does not automatically bring shared prosperity; rather, the outcome depends on whether AI is developed to benefit the many or exacerbate economic inequality.