Tim Ryan Named to National Commission on AI, Workforce - Business Journal Daily

Tim Ryan, former U.S. Rep. and a man who knows his way around a subcommittee, has been named one of 20 commissioners on the National Commission on AI and the Future of the American Workforce — twenty commissioners, which is not a commission, it's a coach party with a letterhead. The article doesn't name the other 19, which is either an oversight or a mercy. The commission will "examine how AI is reshaping the American workforce" and "develop policy recommendations" — examine and develop, the two most passive verbs in the English language, now with a national mandate. It's like responding to a house fire by forming a committee on the future of fire safety.

Ryan himself said AI is "one of the most challenging policy issues America and the world will face in the coming decades." Coming decades — the American workforce is being reshaped right now, this quarter, this earnings call. But sure, let's set up a commission to look at it. The article doesn't say when the commission will meet, who appointed its members, whether it has a budget, or even if they get a parking space.

And Tim Ryan is the perfect man for the job — experienced enough to know how the game is played, ambitious enough to stay in the room, and quoted here saying something suitably grave without committing to anything. He'll be one of 20. If they each bring a different opinion, they might manage to produce a document that says "AI is complicated" in 400 pages. Meanwhile, the actual workforce is getting the sharp end of the algorithmic stick, but at least there's a commission — the policy equivalent of thoughts and prayers, with more frequent flyer miles. The commission's name alone is a masterpiece of bureaucratic poetry: "National Commission on AI and the Future of the American Workforce." It sounds like the title of a Netflix documentary that nobody finishes.