Nobel Laureate Howitt Warns AI Innovation Is Speeding a Major Tech Shift

Peter Howitt, professor emeritus at Brown University in the United States, said on May 14 at the 2026 Dong-A International Finance Forum at Lotte Hotel in Jung-gu, Seoul, that advances in AI are eliminating existing jobs and creating new ones. He said the pace of change is much faster than when past innovations such as the steam engine, electricity and computers emerged, adding that “we are at the beginning of a major technological transition.” Howitt won last year’s Nobel Prize in Economics for developing Joseph Schumpeter’s concept of “creative destruction” and identifying the relationship between innovation and growth. He stressed that companies and academia should interact to keep up with AI’s evolution, while governments should help workers who lose jobs in the process. Jin Sung-joon of the Democratic Party of Korea said in congratulatory remarks that real growth means supplying productive resources to new technologies and industries so everyone can grow together. Source: rss.donga.com