OpenAI has unveiled a slate of policy proposals aimed at steering economies through AI-driven disruption, including the creation of public wealth funds, rapid-response welfare schemes and faster expansion of power infrastructure.
According to OpenAI, the emergence of superintelligence may tilt economic gains towards companies and investors, potentially reducing tax income that supports social protection schemes.
OpenAI, in a Monday report titled Industrial Policy for the Intelligence Age: Ideas to Keep People First, outlined policy recommendations centred on so-called AI superintelligence. Some in the field anticipate that AI will achieve human-like cognitive ability, or artificial general intelligence, in the near future, with superintelligence expected as the next phase.
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"We offer these ideas not as fixed answers but as a starting point for a broader conversation about how to ensure that AI benefits everyone. That conversation should be inclusive and ongoing—engaging governments, companies, researchers, civil society, communities, and families—and should be mediated through democratic processes that give people real power to shape the AI future they want. It also needs to expand globally—bringing in the perspectives of cultures, societies, and governments around the world,” OpenAI said.
At the heart of OpenAI's plan are three objectives: to spread the benefits of AI-driven growth more widely, mitigate large-scale risks through robust safeguards, and guarantee access to AI capabilities across the economy.
The measures are largely framed around the social consequences of AI, particularly fears of widespread job losses. OpenAI has called for a public wealth fund that would return a portion of AI-driven gains directly to citizens.
It also suggests ensuring workers share in efficiency improvements, for instance, by incentivising companies to adopt four-day work weeks where productivity holds steady. Alongside this, it proposes tracking the impact on wages and employment, with extra support such as unemployment benefits or reskilling programmes activated if certain limits are exceeded.
Among its suggestions is a potential levy on robots which would see automated systems taxed in line with the workers they substitute. It also recommends higher employer contributions to pensions, greater support for medical expenses and assistance with childcare and eldercare.
The company acknowledges that AI poses broader risks than employment disruption, including potential abuse by state actors or bad-faith users and the chance of systems operating outside human oversight. It has proposed containment measures for dangerous AI, dedicated regulatory institutions and focused protections against threats such as cyberattacks and biosecurity hazards.
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