Economists urge action as AI drives up prices, tops charts and buys up land

This dispatch covers a warning from nearly 200 economists about how fast AI could transform the economy, the Federal Reserve weighing AI-driven inflation, an AI cover song leading the charts in Australia under compulsory licensing, and land sales to data center developers in a Pennsylvania township.

Nearly 200 economists, researchers and tech figures, among them 15 Nobel laureates and the chief economists of OpenAI and Anthropic, signed a statement calling for urgent work on understanding and steering the economics of AI, a notable shift for a field that has treated AI as a slow, ordinary technology.
Federal Reserve officials are reported to be weighing AI-linked price increases, which began with a surge in memory chip demand, among the factors that could justify raising interest rates.
Consumer hardware is absorbing the cost, with a high-end MacBook rising from 1,699 to 1,999 dollars, layoffs at Microsoft's Xbox division tied to the components shortage, and one analyst expecting at least a year before prices ease.
A song that appears to be an AI-generated cover of Madonna's Like a Prayer leads the Australian charts, and compulsory licensing rules mean the original artist cannot block it as long as royalties are paid.
In Salem Township, Pennsylvania, 96 families sold land to data center developers for large sums, which the writer reads as a sign that AI buyers can gradually strip communities of power one deal at a time.