Xbox CEO Asha Sharma Tapped to Advise Federal Reserve on Jobs Days After Mass Layoffs
The US Federal Reserve has appointed Xbox CEO Asha Sharma to a productivity and jobs task force that will assess the economic impact of new technologies like AI, raising questions about timing after she oversaw 3,200 job cuts.
The US Federal Reserve has announced the industry leaders who will head up its various task forces guiding monetary policies. One of these teams, focused on productivity and jobs, will assess the economic impact of new general-purpose technologies, including artificial intelligence, to inform the Fed's policy judgments.
Among the advisors is new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma. She moved to gaming from Microsoft's Core AI group and in her first few months oversaw a price hike for gaming hardware and announced the cutting of 3,200 jobs across Microsoft's studios. Microsoft has been cutting staff across many divisions for some time, so this is not a policy she personally brought in.
Joining her in this advisory group are Marc Andreessen, a venture capitalist, and Charles I. Jones, a Stanford University economics professor currently on leave at the Anthropic Institute. Jones aside, the trio may not be the most reassuring when it comes to being critical of AI and the job market.
