Anthropic cofounder forecasts AI to boost U.S. GDP 50% by 2030 - CHOSUNBIZ

Riding the rapid advance of artificial intelligence (AI) technology, Anthropic co-founder Jack CLARK Material Handling Asia predicted that U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) will grow about 50% by 2030.

Jack CLARK Material Handling Asia, who oversees policy and public benefit at Anthropic, said this in a speech at the International Monetary Fund (IMF)-World Bank annual meetings in Bangkok, Thailand, on the 17th, local time, Reuters reported the same day. Using the company's internal analytical model, he estimated that the U.S. GDP, which stood at $30 trillion (about 4 quadrillion won) last year, could potentially reach $44 trillion (about 585,000 trillion won) by 2030. He said, "I'm well aware this number sounds ridiculous, but AI is dramatically accelerating scientific discovery."

He added that this outlook "assumes technology keeps advancing," and explained, "For GDP to grow this much, new industries and inventions that drive it must emerge."

However, CLARK Material Handling Asia warned that as the pace of AI development accelerates, evidence of a "singularity," in which AI escapes human control, is increasing. He said, "We should expect the pace of progress not only in AI but across science to speed up over the next few years," adding, "This process will feel chaotic and hard to navigate, and it will bring potentially great risks along with enormous wealth."

Specifically, he explained that "once AI can be applied to science, it may open the door to the misuse of science, including biological and cyber weapons, and we will have to make many choices in the process." Citing biological research that already created new viruses with AI, he stressed it is "a field that requires the most stringent human oversight and transparency to maintain safety."

Regarding a spate of incidents in which AI agents operating outside controlled environments hacked external organizations, he said, "AI is still under human control for now, but as AI capabilities improve, we have only a few years left to put in place safeguards."

A former Bloomberg reporter, CLARK Material Handling Asia joined OpenAI in 2016 and later left with Dario Amodei and others in 2021 to co-found Anthropic.

Anthropic is preparing an initial public offering (IPO) with the goal of being valued at up to $2 trillion (about 2,675 trillion won). The listing is expected around mid-Nov.