OpenAI has published a policy paper urging governments around the world to begin planning for an economy transformed by advanced artificial intelligence. The document, titled “Industrial Policy for the Intelligence Age: Ideas to Keep People First,” was released on Monday. In it, the company argues that rapid AI development could fundamentally reshape labor markets, wealth distribution, and economic growth. Officials, the paper contends, must act before those changes arrive rather than after.
The paper warns that AI could concentrate wealth and disrupt employment if policy frameworks fail to keep pace with technological change. OpenAI acknowledges that the precise trajectory of this transition remains uncertain, but calls for a democratic process that gives citizens genuine influence over how AI develops. The company frames the challenge as one requiring broad societal preparation rather than a response left to the technology industry alone.
Among the specific proposals outlined in the document is treating access to AI as a foundational economic resource, comparable to efforts historically made to expand global literacy. OpenAI also recommends modernizing tax systems to account for increasing automation and creating mechanisms through which citizens can share in the financial gains generated by AI-driven industries. The paper draws a direct line between these policy choices and the quality of life outcomes that advanced AI could either enable or undermine.
The company also calls for stronger worker protections and expanded social safety nets in the event that technological change produces sudden, large-scale job losses. On the safety side, the paper proposes oversight tools including auditing requirements for frontier AI models, incident reporting systems, and what it describes as “model-containment playbooks” for situations in which dangerous AI systems cannot easily be withdrawn once deployed. OpenAI writes that if AI ends up controlled by and benefiting only a small number of people, the technology’s broader promise will have gone unfulfilled.
The policy push arrives at a turbulent moment for OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who is facing renewed scrutiny following an extensive investigation published by The New Yorker. The report reveals that in 2023, OpenAI co-founder and then-chief scientist Ilya Sutskever wrote internal memos accusing Altman of being deceptive about the company’s safety protocols and other key operations. Those concerns reportedly contributed to a loss of trust between Altman and the company’s board.
According to the magazine, the board ultimately decided to fire Altman, concluding that he had not been consistently candid with its members. The dismissal triggered significant unrest within the company, with employees threatening to resign in protest. Prominent investors, including Josh Kushner, reportedly threatened to withhold funding unless Altman was reinstated, and he was eventually brought back to lead the company.
The report also highlighted deep internal divisions over governance and the company’s direction. Former insiders, including Sutskever and Anthropic co-founder Dario Amodei, are described as having argued that Altman placed growth and product expansion ahead of the safety-focused mission that originally defined OpenAI. The company did not respond to a request for comment on the matter.
Originally reported by Decrypt.
