Licensing the Future: Why the ‘Make AI Work for Americans Act’ Misses the Mark

Senator Mark Kelly’s (D-AZ) “Make AI Work for Americans Act” was introduced recently to much fanfare from representatives of organized labor, activists, and even such prominent economists as Daron Acemoglu and Erik Brynjolfsson. The bill expands unemployment benefits, workforce development programs, and job retraining.

While ambitious in its goal of helping the United States adapt to the changes wrought by AI, it does so without addressing the government-imposed barriers that impede letting people change jobs in the first place, chiefly occupational licensing. In fact, the bill would implement policies that reinforce these artificial barriers.

For instance, the bill’s new national service program would make participants eligible for help with “credentialing costs, licensing fees, exam fees” in fields that rely on human judgment and relationship-based work, and counts “obtaining licensure” as a qualifying outcome. In the full text, licensure appears only as something to pay for, never as something to reform. This is a problem given the high time and resource costs of many licenses. And this is no niche issue: Roughly 22 percent of U.S. workers need a license to work.

Importantly, these barriers do not just affect the skilled trades, but also “knowledge-based” professions. Accountants, lawyers, physicians, and architects all face licensing requirements. Yet it is these professions where the effects of AI are likely to be felt. Despite the earlier prognostications of some industry executives that AI would create mass unemployment among white-collar professionals, the picture that has emerged is more complicated.

Continue reading at the Southern California News Group.