The Impact of Generative Artificial Intelligence on Socioeconomic Inequalities and Policy Making

Generative artificial intelligence, including chatbots like ChatGPT, has the potential to both exacerbate and ameliorate existing socioeconomic inequalities. In this article, we provide a state-of-the-art interdisciplinary overview of the probable impacts of generative AI on four critical domains: work, education, health, and information. Our goal is to warn about how generative AI could worsen existing inequalities while illuminating directions for using AI to resolve pervasive social problems. Generative AI in the workplace can boost productivity and create new jobs, but the benefits will likely be distributed unevenly. In education, it offers personalized learning but may widen the digital divide. In healthcare, it improves diagnostics and accessibility but could deepen pre-existing inequalities. For information, it democratizes content creation and access but also dramatically expands the production and proliferation of misinformation. Each section covers a specific topic, evaluates existing research, identifies critical gaps, and recommends research directions. We conclude with a section highlighting the role of policymaking to maximize generative AI’s potential to reduce inequalities while mitigating its harmful effects. We discuss strengths and weaknesses of existing policy frameworks in the European Union, the United States, and the United Kingdom, observing that each fails to fully confront the socioeconomic challenges we have identified. We contend that these policies should promote shared prosperity through the advancement of generative AI. We suggest several concrete policies to encourage further research and debate. This article emphasizes the need for interdisciplinary collaborations to understand and address the complex challenges of generative AI.