Capacity development

Just one week after releasing its most advanced AI models to date — Opus 4 and Sonnet 4 — Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei warned in an interview with Axios that AI could soon reshape the job market in alarming ways.

AI, he said, may be responsible for eliminating up to half of all entry-level white-collar roles within the next one to five years, potentially driving unemployment as high as 10% to 20%.

Amodei’s goal in speaking publicly is to help workers prepare and to urge both AI companies and governments to be more transparent about coming changes. ‘Most of them [workers] are unaware that this is about to happen,’ he told Axios. ‘It sounds crazy, and people just don’t believe it.’

According to Amodei, the shift from AI augmenting jobs to fully automating them could begin as soon as two years from now. He highlighted how widespread displacement may threaten democratic stability and deepen inequality, as large groups of people lose the ability to generate economic value.

Despite these warnings, Amodei explained that competitive pressures prevent developers from slowing down. Regulatory caution in the US, he suggested, would only result in countries like China advancing more rapidly.

Still, not all implications are negative. Amodei pointed to major breakthroughs in other areas, such as healthcare, as part of the broader impact of AI.

‘Cancer is cured, the economy grows at 10% a year, the budget is balanced — and 20% of people don’t have jobs,’ he said.

To prepare society, Amodei called for increased public awareness, encouraging individuals to reconsider career paths and avoid the most automation-prone fields.

He referenced the Anthropic Economic Index, which monitors how AI affects different occupations. At its launch in February, the index showed that 57% of AI use cases still supported human tasks rather than replacing them.

However, during a press-only session at Code with Claude, Amodei noted that augmentation is likely to be a short-term strategy. He described a ‘rising waterline’ — the gradual shift from assistance to full replacement — which may soon outpace efforts to retain human roles.

‘When I think about how to make things more augmentative, that is a strategy for the short and the medium term — in the long term, we are all going to have to contend with the idea that everything humans do is eventually going to be done by AI systems. That is a constant. That will happen,’ he said.

His other recommendations included boosting AI literacy and equipping public officials with a deeper understanding of superintelligent systems, so they can begin forming policy for a radically transformed economy.

While Amodei’s outlook may sound daunting, it echoes a pattern seen throughout history: every major technological disruption brings workforce upheaval. Though some roles vanish, others emerge. Several studies suggest AI may even highlight the continued relevance of distinctively human skills.

Regardless of the outcome, one thing remains clear — learning to work with AI has never been more important.

Would you like to learn more about AI, tech and digital diplomacy? If so, ask our Diplo chatbot!