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AI Businesses

AI's Ability To Displace Jobs is Advancing Quickly, Anthropic CEO Says (axios.com) 50

The ability of AI displace humans at various tasks is accelerating quickly, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said at an Axios event on Wednesday. From the report: Amodei and others have previously warned of the possibility that up to half of white-collar jobs could be wiped out by AI over the next five years. The speed of that displacement could require government intervention to help support the workforce, executives said.

"As with most things, when an exponential is moving very quickly, you can't be sure," Amodei said. "I think it is likely enough to happen that we felt there was a need to warn the world about it and to speak honestly." Amodei said the government may need to step in and support people as AI quickly displaces human work.

AI's Ability To Displace Jobs is Advancing Quickly, Anthropic CEO Says

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  • by Kokuyo ( 549451 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2025 @02:55PM (#65666540) Journal

    ...says producer of tool X.

    And we care because..?

    • It's toolitis at it's worst. Suits believe AI will do everything, including the things it's showing the least promise at doing now. I'd urge folks to read this substack post called "Where's the shovelware?" [substack.com] It makes the most obvious point: where's the beef? Every programmer has 10 projects they want to do but don't have time. If Vibe Coding worked, where's the flood of new apps ? I've heard the "well that's coming along" excuses, but it's coming along a lot like the JFK files. They keep releasing "stu
      • Everyone with a hobby has ten projects they intend on doing. We realize half of them are flight of fancy, 4 would be nice to have and 1 for sure will actually get done. Programmers and people that know how to program are no different then anyone else in that respect.

        I've been "intending" to do a few things for years and the longer I put it off the more likely I won't bother. It really just means those ideas weren't really all that important or actually worth it in the long run.

        • I definitely agree with you. The question is which ones might get done if the level-of-effort was considerably lower? That's the whole pitch, right? They say the AI bots will make it dramatically easier and faster. The lack of shovelware is a hint that all this is more motion than action.
    • by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      The Glory if it replaces marketers first.

    • Every CEO in every single company on the planet is going top to bottom through their entire organization to find things they can automate.

      Maybe they will do it with AI and maybe they will do it with nothing more than a simple Pearl script but there's a massive automation push going on right now because of it and that's going to be a lot of dead jobs.

      Even if you think you're going to survive congratulations you now have hundreds of thousands if not millions of people gunning for your job.

      Your bos
  • I hear there are many jobs in farm fields in the US these days.

    • Can you pick cotton?
    • Yeah but it's a Doomsday job. It's backbreaking work in the literal sense of the word. It's not something most people can do until retirement and even if they can it pays so little you can never afford to retire.

      The reason we have to bring in a constant stream of immigrants to do that is that they are a resource we are consuming. Anyone taking those jobs knows that they're on borrowed time. And the sheer brutality of the work means that unless you're some sort of superhuman you aren't going to pull your
      • Perhaps someone has noticed this with you before, but your second paragraph argument could have been lifted straight from any confederate newspaper in the 1850's.

        Thank you for clarifying that for me.

        Note to self: Immigrants are the new slaves that no one can live without.

        • by dgatwood ( 11270 )

          Perhaps someone has noticed this with you before, but your second paragraph argument could have been lifted straight from any confederate newspaper in the 1850's.

          Thank you for clarifying that for me.

          Note to self: Immigrants are the new slaves that no one can live without.

          Until the tools get better, yes. Slavery would likely have ended by now even without the Civil War because of the cotton picker. The same thing is happening to the remaining agricultural jobs now, thanks to AI.

          Strawberry picking robots are already good enough to do the job, just with a ridiculously high up-front cost (like $300k each, which is probably well over a hundred years worth of labor costs, and possibly several hundred). The next generation are going to be more like $12k, which is more like 20 y

    • Grafting fruit frees is a learnable skill.

    • I hear there are many jobs in farm fields in the US these days.

      I know, right? Those jobs were supposed to be restricted to exploited foreigners. What is wrong with people these days?

  • by Sebby ( 238625 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2025 @02:57PM (#65666548) Journal

    AI's Ability To Displace Jobs is Advancing Quickly, Anthropic CEO Says

    Wow. What a surprise. AI company CEO says their AI is so awesome it destroys jobs. Such useful words coming in as some sort of 'news' of some kind (read: pumping up their stock)

  • Wat! What? (Score:5, Funny)

    by PPH ( 736903 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2025 @02:58PM (#65666552)

    Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said

    He's still here?

    I'll believe that AI works when he's standing in front of a Home Depot.

    • Dude nobody is standing in front of a home Depot you get deported if you do. And they could care less if you are a citizen anymore. They have quotas to meet.
  • by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2025 @03:01PM (#65666566)

    AI is increasing jobs. Nobody is getting not hired or fired due to AI. The thing we're losing jobs to is inflation due to tariff bullshit. Inflation is reducing the number of people going to restaurants and things like that. If AI was taking jobs and doing things more efficient we'd see the price of goods collapsing.

    • AI is _changing_ jobs. As in the ability to work with AI to greatly increase your productivity is a new and very marketable skill. And right now, people doing AI training are massively overpaid. Of course, I expect all AI training to be done by AI in the near future, so not really a career to go into.
      • yeah now instead of babysitting people who are being irresponsible with their development projects, I get to babysit people who are babysitting an AI that they are using to be irresponsible with their development projects.

    • I just listened to the Fed Chair's speech. He indicated two things regarding jobs:

      1) Jobs are not decreasing, they're just not increasing as quickly as he'd like.
      2) Changes in immigration policy are offsetting, albeit not 100%, the slowdown in jobs creation. So the balance of open jobs hasn't increased that much, but the bar is lower.

      Point being, he did not call out tariffs as the cause of job losses. He did leave open the possibility that tariffs or something un-named are slowing job creation. You ca

    • No, we would see profits of corporations soar. I seriously doubt the "consumers" will get much of the efficiency gains. The widget maker will just go from making 5% to 15% profits but the consumer won't see a difference. Since most all our widget makers are making proprietary widgets, they don't even face direct competition for their products most the time.

      You won't see a price war at all. The cartels will just make more money. If you are invested, your portfolio should go up as well. So maybe AI can help k

      • What do you believes controls the price of an item? I mean why don't they just double or triple the price of the widget? Also quit using the word widget if you aren't willing to apply it broadly. I mean is toilet paper proprietary? Orange juice? Strawberries? There's two things that can control the price of an item .. a competitor or customer's willingness/ability to pay. I find it hard to believe there is collusion for most consumer items. If it was some industry with a few players, like airlines or cars .

        • I was thinking of the more expensive stuff we tend to buy, such as the ones you mention. As you say, most the little stuff we buy comes with a lot of choice and usually many places to buy the exact same items at various prices. We also buy a lot of digital stuff that cost practically nothing to reproduce.

          You would actually be surprised how few companies really exist on the grocery store shelf.
          https://imgur.com/most-everyth... [imgur.com]

          Most tech is proprietary, at least consumer facing. AI could very well reduce overa

  • Amateur! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Locke2005 ( 849178 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2025 @03:05PM (#65666578)
    AI will never be able to steal office supplies as adeptly as I do!
  • by Sebby ( 238625 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2025 @03:09PM (#65666594) Journal

    So how long before the jokes all comedians tell all sound the same (same theme, same setup, same punchline)?

    • by Jeremi ( 14640 )

      So how long before the jokes all comedians tell all sound the same (same theme, same setup, same punchline)?

      Comedians will do anything that works to get a laugh, but sourcing jokes from ChatGPT (or similar) is not an effective way to get a laugh. Comedy is based on surprise, and LLMs are based on summarizing old material, so there's a bit of a mismatch there.

    • Kimmel gone (Score:4, Insightful)

      by oumuamua ( 6173784 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2025 @09:24PM (#65667378)
      They 'say' it was related to a Charlie Kirk comment but in fact the FCC threatened to withdraw ABC's broadcast licenses unless they got rid of Kimmel. This straight out of the dictator's playbook to control the media. The comedians will be gone well before AI replaces them. https://www.msnbc.com/all-in/w... [msnbc.com]
  • Because that is the level of our best AI - an intern.

    If an intern can do it, an AI can do it.

    The good jobs still exist and will likely always exist.

    • by PCM2 ( 4486 )

      So, how does anyone enter the workforce?

    • by toddz ( 697874 )
      I'm going to have to call you on that one. AI can't get my coffee in the morning.
    • by Jeremi ( 14640 )

      Because that is the level of our best AI - an intern.

      ... this year. And next year, the same logic will have us getting rid of all of the entry-level employees, and the year after that, the mid-level employees, and some years from now, all employees. Yay, progress?

      • Worst take on AI, if only because it is common. Everyone misunderstands how AI works and what it does. AI DOES NOT THINK.

        It predicts. It is not getting qualitatively better at all. It is getting quantitatively better. They are adding more computers and algorithms that work more efficiently. They are fixing minor issues, like the ability to understand "not", and encouraging it to say "I do not know".

        AI has no reasoning. It predicts. Interns are allowed to not think. All of the significant jobs re

  • Actual users of his product say it's got a long way to go.

    • by HiThere ( 15173 )

      Yes, it's got a long way to go. Unfortunately, at least SOME of the changes are (currently) on an exponential growth curve, and people have very poor ability to project those. (And also at some point "limiting factors" will manifest, which aren't significant during the early part of the rise.)

      There are quite plausible scenarios where we are still in the early part of the exponential growth curve. Nobody can prove whether this speculation is true or false, but we should be prepared in case it is true.

    • One example, "how many new records has the S&P 500 set so far in 2025." Perfect question for an AI but the answers range from 12 to 28. Sometimes the answer decreases from day to day.

  • ...making money without needing to pay employees
    AI companies feed their fantasy with predictions and the investment flows in
    Real progress is being made, but not nearly as much as the hypmongers and pundits claim
    Clueless executives buy immature products from lying salesweasels with predictable results
    Expert workers find used for AI, using it when it works well, but understanding its weaknesses
    Wannabe techies with no skill or knowledge believe that they can "vibe code" their way to riches, with predictable re

    • Hmm..how do they make money if there is no one who can/will buy your products ?

      The top 1% may think its awesome, right until the find out the other 99% are no longer buying anything and that they too are headed to be in the 99%.
  • As far back as 1932, Bertrand Russell wrote about how modern day humans have their priorities all screwed up. AI as we know and use it today is just making it even more obvious: https://harpers.org/archive/19... [harpers.org]

  • Lets just say for a minute that this is true, and companies all over the country start replacing workers with AI.
    Great, now who is going to buy your product? AI will not be your customers, now what? Who will they blame as their profits disappear?
    Short term greed always seems to be the aim for these companies.

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