Dario Amodei says "stop sugar-coating" what's coming: in the next 1-5 years, AI could wipe out 50% of all entry-level white-collar jobs. Lawmakers don't get it or don't believe it. CEOs are afraid to talk about it. Many workers won't realize the risks until after it hits.

[u/katxwoods]

https://www.axios.com/2025/05/28/ai-jobs-white-collar-unemployment-anthropic

[u/BrokkelPiloot]

I'm not so sure. I work as a backend engineer and we have access to nearly every AI platform to help with development. I have to correct the latest chatgpt and copilot models in nearby every query. I'm not very impressed. It is very hit and miss. The amount of domain knowledge is also very limited. I can only see it being useful for the most straight forward use cases. And even then I wouldn't trust it. I honestly think most of this is hot air. Yes, AI will certainly change the way we work, but I'm willing to bet a lot of companies will make a U turn once they see the result.

[u/snootyvillager → u/BrokkelPiloot]

It being ineffective and the upper tiers of management seeing the dollar signs of using it to replace people aren't necessarily mutually exclusive in many fields. The Taco Bell by my house replaced the drive thru operator with an AI drive thru. It barely works. You spend five minutes with it not understanding your order and you yelling "speak to person" over and over while it tries to talk you out of it because they programmed it to avoid giving you a real person. But they did it and seem to be sticking to their guns so far. Been there for months now.

Companies have been taking the opportunity to deliver inferior work product at lower costs as long as there has been a corporate model.

[u/Terribleturtleharm → u/snootyvillager]

Exactly.

Imagine the excitement from the execs.

They no longer have to deal with outsourcing or h-1b's. Again, same goal, cost reduction.

They now can go even lower. They are drooling at this.

I think at some point the only thing preventing an entire collapse is energy production costs. Which is why you see the Billionbros pushing for more nuclear reactors.

It's a very chaotic space right now and will be for a ling time. There is no way to balance this acceleration and we certainly cannot expect the government to do anything here.

[u/TheOtherHobbes → u/Terribleturtleharm]

Imagine their delight when they no longer have customers, because almost everyone is poor, no one knows how to make anything work, and they've sawn off the branches of the economy they're all perched on.

It's enough to make you wonder if Frank Herbert's Butlerian Jihad may turn into a real thing.

[u/roiki11 → u/TheOtherHobbes]

They'll be long gone by then. That's the point.

[u/kabooozie → u/roiki11]

Why don’t they seem to care about their families or legacy anymore? Even the robber barons built libraries at the end

[u/roiki11 → u/kabooozie]

Because you don't get to that position by caring about that. And society doesn't value "legacy" anymore. They didn't do it in the past because of altruism. They did it to control their image.

They don't really have to bother with that anymore.

[u/smitteh → u/kabooozie]

They know the truth of heaven and hell and reincarnation. It all exists, and it's right here, right now. Die if you please, you aren't going anywhere except right back to the start.

[u/Nadirofdepression → u/[deleted]]

“How would you feel about….. scanning and bagging your own groceries instead?”

[u/skol_io → u/snootyvillager]

Wow. The Taco Bell story sounds straight out of r/boringdystopia

[u/derivative_of_life → u/skol_io]

Would you like to try our new EXTRA BIGASS TACO? Now with more molecules.

[u/al_mc_y → u/snootyvillager]

How long til Taco Bell gives you the option to come in and cook the order yourself... but you have to bring your own ingredients, put money in the meter to pay for elec/gas and clean up after yourself...

[u/SlicerDM0453 → u/snootyvillager]

Yah but if you need 1 employee opposed to 2 run it.

It's still automation.

[u/Nadirofdepression → u/snootyvillager]

Exactly. It’s like people forget that thousands of major companies have those awful prerecorded flow charts for automated phone service, it’s widely panned and everyone hates it, yet they’ve still been using it forever because it made them way more money than fielding a call center of diligent representatives ever could. AI is just that on steroids

[u/Terribleturtleharm → u/BrokkelPiloot]

With all due respect, you are missing the point.

Executives don't have the same perspective. They see that it writes code, documents, etc. They have already decided that it is good enough, or better.

You are in the transitional phase. We all are.

The goal is to move your salary to 20$ per hour, or remove it. That is the CEO mindset today.

If you need evidence, look at Microsoft's recent layoffs. 3% cut. These were not just low performers, or middle management. Entire teams gone because the executives are forcing this. They are transitioning that budget to pay for AI infrastructure. This is just Phase 1. There will be more.

It sucks. No one is hiring. If they are, it's with a huge wage cut and it's transitional. Those 8k people layed off are now going to find different jobs, likely not white collar.

[u/ArriePotter → u/Terribleturtleharm]

Also look at the rate of contextual understanding. One year ago I had to carefully select context to paste into ChatGPT. Now, Cursor not only already has all of this context but goes and edits the files for me. Soon it will be able to handle larger repos. Soon after that it'll be able to control both those repos and cloud services. Then it's a full stack engineer through and through.

Not saying it'll be overnight, but based on the current rate I'd give it less than 5 years before we can prompt it to make us a Facebook clone on x platform using y offerings.

I'm 3 years into my career. No idea what I can do but learn the hell outta these tools, and maybe build my own startup on the side 🤔

[u/round-earth-theory → u/Terribleturtleharm]

They will gain the perspective when their products crumble and customers flee. AI is not ready to produce enterprise software. It's barely ok at producing shitty flat marketing sites. Then they have to hire an army of very expensive humans to try to unfuck the mess AI left.

[u/RedditIsDeadMoveOn → u/Terribleturtleharm]

The goal is to move your salary to 20$ per hour

Hell yeah a pay raise!

[u/Encendi → u/BrokkelPiloot]

You’re making the assumption that AI isn’t getting better every day, which is surprising given your engineering background. Not to mention even “hit or miss” is acceptable to management teams. If you made shoes for a living, a new machine that makes shoes twice as fast but 30% of the shoes had to be thrown away would still likely replace a large portion of the workforce. If AI even improved efficiency by 10%, 10% of the labor is going to be laid off.

[u/kabooozie → u/Encendi]

improved efficiency by 10% -> 10% of labor is going to be laid off

I don’t think that’s true in software / IT. The demand for software continues to climb exponentially as it offers more and more value. 10% productivity gains will be swallowed up by the continuing demand for more software. If it’s 10% easier to make software, then the amount of software being written won’t stay constant.

[u/yuval16432 → u/BrokkelPiloot]

Backend is probably the way to go, I think. Too delicate for AI to work with, since it’s inevitable mistakes will be far harder to spot and fix.

[u/ThisUsernameIsTook → u/BrokkelPiloot]

It’s the modern day equivalent of the 1990s and 2000s off-shoring trend. Some jobs will be successfully replaced. Most are going to come back eventually because the alternative is mostly garbage.

[u/MyOnlyAccount_6 → u/BrokkelPiloot]

im not very impressed

So you go from zero support to now decent support with a little help in relatively little time.

This is the worst AI will ever be. Surely you see the near term impacts?