The U.S. Federal Reserve has announced the industry leaders who will head its various task forces guiding monetary policies. Among the most baffling appointments is that of Asha Sharma, the new CEO of Xbox, who will join the productivity and jobs team. The task force is tasked with "assessing the economic impact of new general-purpose technologies, including artificial intelligence, to inform the Federal Reserve's policy judgments."
The timing couldn't be worse. In her first few months at Xbox, Sharma oversaw another price hike for gaming hardware and announced the company would cut 3,200 jobs across its studios. While Microsoft has been reducing staff across many divisions for some time, the optics of appointing a CEO who just laid off thousands to advise on employment policies are deeply ironic. The gaming industry as a whole is struggling to maintain employment levels and to figure out a responsible way to leverage AI without destroying jobs.
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A Questionable Advisory Trio
Sharma is not the only controversial figure on the panel. Joining her are Marc Andreessen, a venture capitalist known for his often uncritical enthusiasm for AI, and Charles I. Jones, a Stanford economics professor currently on leave to work at the Anthropic Institute. Apart from Jones, the group does not inspire confidence when it comes to critically evaluating AI's impact on the job market.
The appointment comes at a time when the global tech industry is experiencing a wave of layoffs, and the Fed's role in guiding economic policy is crucial. As one analyst put it, "asking a CEO who just laid off thousands to advise on protecting jobs is at least ironic."
To better understand the broader context of US industrial policy and AI, readers can refer to our earlier piece on how OpenAI launched GPT-5.6 models with enhanced cybersecurity and ChatGPT Work for enterprises, a development that raises further questions about job automation. Also relevant is our analysis of how China and the US are investing in chips and nuclear energy, two strategies Europe cannot ignore.
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The Federal Reserve has defended the appointments, arguing that the group includes diverse voices from the productive sector. However, many observers fear that the presence of Andreessen and Sharma could lead to an overly optimistic assessment of AI's impact on employment, overlooking the risks of technological unemployment. The Federal Reserve is tasked with maintaining economic stability, but this appointment raises doubts about its ability to understand the real dynamics of the labor market in the age of AI.
