Stanford economist Charles Jones named to Federal Reserve task force
Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh has named Charles “Chad” Jones, a Stanford economist and leading expert on artificial intelligence, population growth and innovation, to one of five new task forces charged with reviewing the central bank’s operations.
Jones co-leads an advisory group on productivity and jobs as AI and other technological advances have the potential to reshape the U.S. economy. Also steering the group are Marc Andreessen, cofounder of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, and Asha Sharma, who oversees Microsoft’s Xbox gaming unit.
Warsh, who took over as Fed chief in May, has vowed to reform the monetary policymaking body. The other four task forces will re-examine how the Fed communicates; its balance sheet; the data sources that inform its policies; and the frameworks it uses to understand and respond to the drivers of inflation.
Jones is the STANCO 25 Professor of Economics at Stanford Graduate School of Business and a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR). He recently went on leave from Stanford to join The Anthropic Institute, a research arm of AI giant Anthropic.
In his research on AI, Jones has examined two possibilities — that the technology could boost economic growth or could be catastrophic for humankind. He’s also looked at how “weak links” in work processes could hold back economic growth in an AI-led world.
At the 2026 SIEPR Economic Summit, Jones shared his insights into AI’s opportunities and its risks. Listen to what Jones had to say: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZsrgBQeJdE&t=118s