Artificial intelligence is considered the most significant technological innovation of our time with profound implications for labor markets, businesses, and economic policy decisions. The workshop “Economic and Societal Impacts of AI,” which CESifo hosted at the ifo Institute in Munich on December 5 and 6 in collaboration with the TransforM Cluster of Excellence, centered on what this transformation means and how it can be shaped.
TransforM is the cluster of excellence for social sciences at TUM. The ifo Institute is a participating partner. The aim of the project, which is funded by the German Research Foundation, is to analyze the societal, economic, and political impacts of transformative technologies like AI at an early stage. To this end, TransforM integrates economics, social sciences, law, technology, and computer science with the goal of more rapidly contributing scientific expertise to public discourse and policy consulting.
The workshop centered on crucial economic policy issues: How is AI transforming employment and the qualifications required? What new competitive structures are emerging? And how do businesses respond when data and automation become central factors of production? The discussions made it clear that AI is not a matter of gradual progress, but rather a disruptive change that requires innovative responses from both research and policymakers.
