Google is hiring an economist to understand how advanced AI could affect our wallets (www.businessinsider.com)

Google DeepMind is recruiting a "Senior AI Economist" to investigate how advanced AI — up to artificial general intelligence (AGI) — could reshape scarcity, wealth, and the distribution of power and resources. The role will lead a new research area, developing economic simulations and models to explore “post‑AGI” scenarios and questioning standard assumptions about money, firms, labor markets and growth. The posting signals DeepMind wants rigorous, model‑based forecasts of long‑run macroeconomic outcomes and distributional effects rather than only technical or safety analyses. The hire is notable because it shows a major lab preparing for systemic economic shifts that could follow transformative AI — from “radical abundance” to deep disruption of jobs, markets and institutions. Technically, the work implies building forward‑looking macro and agent‑based models, scenario analysis, and interdisciplinary research linking AI capabilities to productivity, income distribution and policy design. It also echoes broader industry moves (Anthropic advertising similar roles) and DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis’s calls for international governance structures to steer AGI’s societal impacts. The effort could inform regulation, corporate strategy, and safety planning by translating AI capability projections into concrete economic and distributional risks and opportunities.