Author/s: James Manyika

James Manyika is a Senior Vice President at Google-Alphabet and President for Research, Labs, Technology & Society. He is Chairman and Director Emeritus of the McKinsey Global Institute, where he served for 26 years. A Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Manyika is a Distinguished Fellow at Stanford's Human-Centered AI Institute, a Distinguished Research Fellow in Ethics & AI at Oxford, and a Visiting Professor at Oxford's Blavatnik School of Government. He has served on multiple U.S. government advisory boards, including as Vice Chair of the Global Development Council under President Obama and on the National Academies Committee on Responsible Computing Research.

Summary

This companion essay explores what must happen for AI to be "hugely beneficial to society and generally acknowledged as such" by 2050. Manyika examines five critical problem groups, including current AI limitations like "hallucinations" and bias, realizing productivity opportunities across sectors, and the alignment problem with increasingly powerful AI systems. He notes that while AI will likely be "more worker-assistive than worker-displacing," gains require broad adoption, investment, workforce readiness, and enabling policies. The UN's March 2024 landmark resolution calling for human rights protection in AI design and deployment signals growing global commitment.