Anthropic CEO Warns: AI Could Eliminate Half of Entry-Level White-Collar Jobs
As artificial intelligence continues to reshape the global workforce, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has issued one of the bluntest warnings yet: up to 50% of entry-level white-collar jobs may soon disappear.
Speaking to Axios, Amodei urged policymakers and the public to “stop sugar-coating” the impact of AI on employment. “We, as the producers of this technology, have a duty and an obligation to be honest about what is coming,” he said. “You should be worried about where the technology we’re building is going.”
The concern isn’t new. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates previously predicted that most jobs would eventually be replaced by AI, with exceptions likely in fields such as biology, energy, and software development. And while Amodei acknowledged AI’s potential benefits—such as breakthroughs in cancer research—he didn’t shy away from the significant disruption he sees coming to the job market.
The warning adds to a growing list of experts and industry leaders who are voicing alarm about AI’s rapid progress. Roman Yampolskiy, an AI safety researcher, recently claimed there’s a near certainty (99.999999%) that advanced AI could pose an existential threat to humanity. Meanwhile, Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind, suggested that artificial general intelligence (AGI) may be close, and that society isn’t prepared for the changes it could bring.
Not everyone shares the same urgency. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman pushed back on doomsday predictions, arguing that the arrival of AGI will likely pass without immediate catastrophic consequences. He expects that milestone to occur within the next five years.
Still, job security remains one of the most pressing concerns surrounding AI’s adoption—particularly for younger workers. Aneesh Raman, Chief Economic Opportunity Officer at LinkedIn, compared the looming disruption to the collapse of U.S. manufacturing jobs in the 1980s. “Now it is our office workers who are staring down the same kind of technological and economic disruption,” Raman told Fortune. “Breaking first is the bottom rung of the career ladder.”
With AI already being used to automate repetitive tasks and support decision-making processes across industries, the conversation is shifting from future speculation to present-day urgency. How governments, companies, and workers respond could define the next chapter in labor history.