2024-01-15 01:21:05
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The data comes from a report released by the IMF ahead of the World Economic Forum meetings in Davos, which begin Monday in the Swiss Alpine resort.
According to the report, AI might accelerate wage inequalities, with a particularly negative effect on the middle classes, while employees who already have high incomes might see their salaries “increase more than in proportion” to the productivity gains that AI would allow them to ensure.
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AI, a “tremendous opportunity”
“It is certain that there will be an impact but it may be different, whether it leads to the disappearance of your job or on the contrary its improvement. So, what to do with those who will be affected and how to share the productivity gains, what can we do to be better prepared?” asked Kristalina Georgieva.
According to the report, Singapore, the United States and Canada are the countries that have been best prepared so far for the integration of AI but, as the Managing Director of the Fund emphasizes, “we must focus on lower-income countries.
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“We must move quickly, allowing them to take advantage of the opportunities offered by AI. The real question will be to put aside fears linked to AI to focus on how to get the best benefit from it for everyone,” insisted the head of the IMF. Especially since in a context of slowing down the pace of global growth, “we desperately need” elements capable of boosting productivity.
“AI can be scary, but it can also be a huge opportunity for everyone,” concluded Kristalina Georgieva.
2024, a year that promises to be “difficult”
In the meantime, the Director General of the Fund invites States to make efforts on the budgetary level, in a context of rising rates and high debt, necessary to cope with the shocks of recent years, between pandemic, war in Ukraine and sharp rise in prices.
“For some countries, the debt problem becomes dramatic, either because they become insolvent or because they have to spend a large part of their income on debt service,” limiting their ability to invest and finance services. essential.
Nevertheless, even if “debt service (the annual cost of repaying borrowed capital and interest) has increased everywhere”, the level reached “remains manageable in many countries, many have had the wisdom to modify the structure of their debt,” detailed Kristalina Georgieva. Despite everything, “countries need to rebuild their budgetary cushions”, because they must be “always ready to face the unexpected”. This requires margin in terms of public finances, which many states no longer have following three years of repeated crises, she insisted.
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But even more, a fiscal policy that is too expansionary would cancel out the effects of monetary policy, which is restrictive, in order to bring inflation back to more acceptable levels, which would only lengthen the time necessary to achieve this.
However, Kristalina Georgieva is aware of another reality: in 2024, “nearly 80 countries will have elections and we know what is happening and the pressure that exists to spend during electoral cycles”. The head of the Fund, whose mandate ends at the end of September, insists that “this year will be difficult”: “We must be ready for the uncertainties that will arise.”
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