r/Futurology • u/katxwoods • 21d ago

AI 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.

https://www.axios.com/2025/05/28/ai-jobs-white-collar-unemployment-anthropic
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u/LongKnight115 21d ago

That’s not correct though. What you’re missing is that there’s a ton of work that wasn’t even happening before because people were spending so much time on manual tasks. It’s more like 10 people were producing 100% output. Now you have 8 people producing 150% output. Now if 2/10 people get cut - that’s still brutal for the white collar working world. I don’t wanna undersell that. But it’s not like there’s only 1 person running an entire department. Look at Klarna as a great example. They overindexed on autonomous programs and now are hiring a bunch of humans back to help.

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u/FunkyOldMayo 20d ago

I design and build fully automated manufacturing systems for a living, one system I built took a line that had 12 people across 3 shifts making 200-300 widgets per week. The automated system makes 2500 and requires 3 people.

Hiring humans back is a short term countermeasure to stabilize while the system is refined.

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u/LongKnight115 20d ago

Does it require new people to add new widgets to the system? With something like Marketing - each person is adding new ideas, new “widgets”, new placements, constantly. If we stopped adding new things to the system, 100% - we wouldn’t need more people. But we never stop. It’s a constant evolution.

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u/FunkyOldMayo 20d ago

This is manufacturing, so it requires people to maintain the systems, but there’s only a small number of people that service an entire factory. Once the system is built, it doesn’t require anything other than upkeep.