Day: January 28, 2026

Dr. Rick Lawrence warned that rapidly advancing artificial intelligence is already displacing entry-level white-collar workers and could dramatically reshape the U.S. economy, with AI models now outperforming human experts on many complex tasks tied to a large share of GDP. He highlighted geopolitical, energy, and policy vulnerabilities, including China’s surging renewable power, soaring data center demand for electricity, sharp cuts to U.S. science funding, and immigration limits that threaten the AI talent pipeline. He also raised alarms about fragile AI-driven financing structures, weak regulation, and profound social risks, urging a moonshot-scale national effort to retrain the workforce or risk “rearranging deck furniture on a sinking ship.”