Pritzker: AI could lift US jobless rate to 7% or 10%

Pritzker's warning comes from a governor who describes himself as a former businessman, and he pairs it with a view that government should act as "a fighter for our people and not just a collaborator with business on everything." He places AI alongside data centers, privacy, and antitrust as areas where he sees a bipartisan backlash forming, and he points to figures on both sides agreeing that AI companies should not get antitrust exemptions.

The unemployment concern is not framed as a certainty. Pritzker says he is not convinced a wave of job loss is inevitable, but that it feels like the direction things are going, which is why he argues for preparation rather than prediction. In his telling, the risk is compounded because much of the benefit of the technology will go to a very, very few people.

He also ties the moment to a generational political shift, saying he is 61 but thinks of the newer generation as more aggressive in standing up for people. On the operational side, he describes Illinois's AI Cabinet as a deliberate, cautious approach rather than plunging headlong, drawing expertise from the University of Chicago and the University of Illinois and keeping privacy and safety in the same conversation as efficiency.