Santa Barbara resident and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt joined more than 200 economists, researchers, and technology leaders this week in warning that artificial intelligence could bring “large-scale job displacement” and fundamentally reshape the global economy.
The 88-word public statement, titled “We Must Act Now” and released Monday, July 13, calls for guardrails, incentives, and institutions to ensure AI complements human workers rather than simply replaces them.
The statement does not create a new program or provide funding, but its signatories are calling for policies that help workers adapt as AI continues to evolve.
Schmidt, who led Google from 2001 to 2011 and now leads aerospace company Relativity Space, signed onto the statement days after making a similar argument in a New York Times guest essay titled “We Returned from China. We Realized Our Century’s Biggest Challenge.” He warned that AI’s rapid growth could disrupt the labor market and increase social tensions if its benefits remain concentrated among a small group of technology companies.
Schmidt’s Santa Barbara ties expanded in April 2025, when he and his wife, Wendy, purchased Tri-County Produce and stepped in to save the longtime Milpas Street market from closing. Plans are now moving forward to expand the market and build 45 housing units on the roughly two-acre property after Santa Barbara’s Architectural Board of Review unanimously approved the project’s design in May.
As AI becomes capable of generating everything from text and code to images and video, the convenience it offers has also raised a much larger concern: What happens to the workers it was built to assist?
According to a recent Gallup survey cited by Schmidt in The New York Times, 80 percent of American adults said the government should regulate AI even if doing so slows its progress.
Meanwhile, communities have pushed back against data centers over their demands on electricity and water, parents have raised concerns about children forming attachments to AI companions, and workers continue to question whether the technology will eventually replace them.
But as that efficiency grows, so does the concern over who ultimately benefits. During layoffs, some tech executives have pointed to AI investments and increased efficiency as reasons for job cuts, though others argue that over-hiring and broader cost-cutting are also to blame.
“People are asking a simple question: Will A.I. make my life better, or make it worse?” Schmidt and Selina Xu, a China and technology analyst, wrote in the Times.
As AI evolves and reshapes the workplace at a rapid pace, researchers and technology leaders, including Schmidt, argue that its impact is not inevitable — and that decisions made now will shape how the technology is integrated into society.
