AI’s potential ‘white-collar massacre’ sparks debate on job future, says Amodei

Anthropic’s billionaire CEO, Dario Amodei, stated in an interview with Axios that artificial intelligence could eliminate 50% of all white-collar, entry-level jobs within the next one to five years, potentially raising unemployment rates to 10% to 20%.

Anthropic recently launched its new AI model, Claude Opus 4, which was reported to have “threatened” an engineer during testing.

Amodei also claimed that AI companies, like his own, will increase income inequality as they make large sums of money, calling on the US government to start taxing the sector. The Anthropic executive even proposed a “symbolic tax” requiring AI companies to pay 3% of the revenue generated from each use of their models to the government, suggesting this tax could be reinvested into programs like “worker retraining.”

On the other hand, critics argue that the “white-collar massacre” rhetoric is part of the “AI hype machine.” For example, Mark Cuban suggested Amodei should calm down, recalling that past technological advancements and automation displaced workers like secretaries for a time but ultimately created new industries and jobs.

Nevertheless, fears that AI will take white-collar jobs may be justified. According to a recent report from the New York Fed, the unemployment rate for new graduates rose to 5.8% last quarter, reaching its highest level since 2021. Data shows that unemployment has particularly increased in technical fields where rapid advancements in AI are being made. Earlier this month, Microsoft announced it would lay off 3% of its staff, including many engineers. Cybersecurity company CrowdStrike laid off 5% of its workforce (500 people), citing AI’s reshaping of the sector.

However, AI is not yet fully ready. A few weeks ago, Klarna reversed its decision after switching to AI customer service representatives and started hiring humans again.