{"id":504903,"date":"2026-05-27T09:15:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T09:15:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/504903\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T09:15:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T09:15:10","slug":"when-pope-leo-and-the-imf-agree-on-ais-dangers-then-its-time-to-pay-attention-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/504903\/","title":{"rendered":"When Pope Leo and the IMF agree on AI\u2019s dangers then it\u2019s time to pay attention \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ireland\u2019s mantra when it comes to corporate America has always been \u201cpay attention to what we do and not what we say\u201d. The working assumption is that Meta<\/a>, Google<\/a> and other US tech companies that have invested here are sophisticated enough to realise the Government of the day \u2013 whatever its composition \u2013 must at least pay lip service to public concerns even if it, at times, addressing these would amount to economic self-immolation.<\/p>\n

Thus, we have together ridden out everything from the Iraq War in 2003 to the weirdness of Donald Trump\u2019s<\/a> second US presidency. US multinationals have looked past our necessary moments of social democratic posturing and occasional anti-US rhetoric and focused instead on our enduring commitment to the things that matter to them: access to the European Union<\/a>, low corporation taxes, business-friendly regulation and skilled workers. <\/p>\n

In return we continued to get jobs, taxes and prosperity.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an interesting, if troubling, question as to whether this symbiotic relationship will survive the potential carnage threatened by artificial intelligence<\/a> (AI). <\/p>\n

This week both the leader of the world\u2019s largest Christian denomination \u2013 Pope Leo<\/a> \u2013 and the globe\u2019s fiscal policeman, the International Monetary Fund<\/a> (IMF), have warned about the technology\u2019s potential to disrupt society. For both God and mammon, the issue \u2013 albeit from different perspectives \u2013 is the consequences of the changing nature of work that seems inevitable. <\/p>\n

The immediate consequences of the growth of AI \u2013 jobs losses \u2013 are already being felt here, notably with Meta announcing it will lay off one in five<\/a> of its 1,750 Irish employees. The Meta job cuts are part of a swath of cost-cutting and job losses across the industry as companies pour money into the race to dominate the market for AI. <\/p>\n

There is as yet no sign of any pushback here, although it has started in the US, which is much further down the road than we are. Graduating students at the University of Arizona booed former Google chief executive Eric Schmidt<\/a> recently when he delivered a commencement address extolling the promise of the new technology. Polls show a majority of Americans feel AI \u201cis moving too fast\u201d and an increasing number are negative about it. <\/p>\n

For the moment, the Government here is sticking to the playbook that has served it so well in the past when the needs of US technology companies don\u2019t necessarily align with the expectations of the public. <\/p>\n

The trick is to promise the thing people support \u2013 the right to remote working or a social media ban for under-16s \u2013 but deliver something much less substantial after muddying the water with reports, committees and finally some legislation by which time everyone has hopefully forgotten why they cared in the first place.<\/p>\n

The Government published an updated version of its Digital and AI strategy in February, promising a \u201cdigital Ireland that is confident, connected and inclusive\u201d, one that would address \u201cnew challenges and risks … in a timely, robust and comprehensive manner\u201d. <\/p>\n

At the same time we have rushed to implement the EU\u2019s AI Act in the most US tech-friendly manner imaginable, with regulatory responsibility devolved to various existing agencies, such as the Central Bank of Ireland or ComReg. Other EU states have taken a more considered approach and gone for a more centralised system with a clear regulator and thus more accountability. <\/p>\n

It is not hard to guess which approach appeals more to US technology companies. <\/p>\n

So far so normal. But what happens if the Cassandras are right and the job losses turn into something much more disruptive. When you hear the chief executive of an international bank \u2013 Bill Winters of Standard Chartered<\/a> \u2013 talking about \u201creplacing lower-value human capital<\/a> with AI\u201d then it is hard to see things ending well. <\/p>\n

The potential is certainly there. The Economic & Social Research Institute<\/a> warned earlier this year that AI could displace \u201c7 per cent of jobs in the Irish workforce, mainly desk-based ones with relatively high incomes\u201d. That\u2019s roughly 200,000 middle-class jobs. <\/p>\n

The IMF said this week we are more exposed than most and said more than 40 per cent of jobs<\/a> here could be affected. Without policies that help workers adapt and \u201cacquire new skills\u201d, the IMF said, some people could be left behind, undermining \u201cinclusive\u201d economic growth. They are singing off pretty much the same hymn sheet as Leo. <\/p>\n

If the most pessimistic predictions come true then some sort of backlash must be on the cards here. The recent fuel protests<\/a> are a warning about how quickly tensions below the surface can bubble up, catching the political establishment off guard. <\/p>\n

It is not torches and pitchforks time yet, but you have to wonder if the Janus-faced approach to US tech investment that has served us so well for the last 40 years will survive. Bait and switch might not cut it this time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ireland\u2019s mantra when it comes to corporate America has always been \u201cpay attention to what we do and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":504904,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[261],"tags":[291,289,290,356,24077,18,189695,823,19,16243,17,1722,2515,218209,82,80],"class_list":["post-504903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-donald-trump","tag-economic-social-research-institute-esri","tag-eire","tag-fuel-protests","tag-google","tag-ie","tag-international-monetary-fund","tag-ireland","tag-meta","tag-pope-leo-xiv","tag-standard-chartered-group","tag-technology","tag-work"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=504903"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504903\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/504904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}