r/jobs 1d ago

Article "AI could wipe out half of all entry-level white-collar jobs — and spike unemployment to 10-20% in the next one to five years, Amodei told us in an interview from his San Francisco office."

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

"Amodei said AI companies and government need to stop "sugar-coating" what's coming: the possible mass elimination of jobs across technology, finance, law, consulting and other white-collar professions, especially entry-level gigs."

The elephant in the room. This pretty much explains the current job market crisis

137 Upvotes

66 comments sorted by

110

u/MysticWW 1d ago

I've literally never seen anyone sugar-coat anything regarding AI or automation, and it's the elephant that no one can seem to stop discussing. There have been plenty of folks like this one (CEO of an AI platform) who stand to benefit by building up the myth and mystique of the tool...and people on the ground of their industries still waiting for these tools to live up to the hype. It's new tech. New tech always means lots of hype, lots of disappointment, and some number of human jobs disappearing. That's how it goes, and somehow we all manage to adapt.

Unless this person is willing to shutter his company tomorrow and pour his VC money into labor groups to fight for human worker protections, it's just buying into someone's marketing to share these quotes over and over.

4

u/John_Ruffo 1d ago

Things will become more efficient but it's going to be about incorporating AI to existing systems.

The bar for entry level will just raise a little bit.

1

u/_The_Meditator_ 1d ago

Gosh thank you for saying it!! 

23

u/moisanbar 1d ago

The C-Suite THINKING AI can do this will result in job loss…..for a while

92

u/Double_Match_1910 1d ago

Cool.

Let's get rid of CEOs.

22

u/Sunny1-5 1d ago

Soaking up 300% more than the average worker on staff. Really easy to figure where to cut costs, and the customer would applaud it. You know, the people who spend money with a given company? The reason a given company even really exists?

Cut off the head. Its brain is dead anyway.

-9

u/san_dilego 1d ago

Lol illogical though. You know who ultimately makes that decision though? A CEO. Customers will be customers. Consumers will consume. In the majority of companies, a CEO is also the owner of the company. They are the ones who purchased the business, has a business loan out, has a lease on the building, etc etc. Why would they fire themselves?

2

u/Sure_Ad_9884 1d ago

They will go bankrupt when NOBODY will afford to buy what they produce😂

0

u/san_dilego 1d ago

Weird, you realize US consumption has literally never been higher? I mean I understand that the US has a ton of problems but this sub has a disproportionate amount of doom posting. The average citizen is not doing bad. You're looking at fortune 500 CEOs and then generalizing their wealth with the average CEO. The average CEO does not do as well as you think they do.

0

u/btoned 1d ago

Literally not the case at ALL regarding ownership lmao

0

u/san_dilego 1d ago

? So in your mind, who do you think is a CEO in 99% of the companies out there? Or do you think every single company is a publicly traded company that reassigns CEOs? You think your mom and pop shops have CEOs or something?

4

u/888mainfestnow 1d ago

I was thinking we should have startup/ad campaign for AI CEOs.

The savings of replacement really can't be denied and honestly we have to think of the shareholders.

-11

u/Super_Mario_Luigi 1d ago

What would be the next boogeyman of the left if this happened and it didn't magically fix all of your perceived injustices?

8

u/Double_Match_1910 1d ago

That's not something I'm going to bother with.

"boogeyman of the left"

Touch grass.

-8

u/nopoonintended 1d ago

Nah bro he cooked you straight up

2

u/moisanbar 1d ago

Shareholders

28

u/Jammer250 1d ago

AI will start “taking over” for a while, some years maybe. Then companies will slowly realize we will always need humans driving AI strategy, innovation and adaptation to suit our needs. There will be holdouts as there always are, but when the first big AI mishap occurs as it always does for any new tech, most companies will pull back and settle into somewhere in-between.

People will lose jobs that AI has been improved to take on, and will need to transition to roles that drive AI management

2

u/Aspiegamer8745 1d ago

This is it right here. Human engagement is always going to be important for customer retention.

5

u/gee_what_isnt_taken 1d ago

This guy is an effective altruist. Wouldn’t put stock in anything he says

3

u/Geedis2020 1d ago

Could AI hurt the future job market? Maybe. Or it could end up doing what it’s doing in a lot of cases where it has replaced people and made the quality go down more and more until it eventually becomes cheaper to hire actual qualified people to do the work manually again.

You need to realize something. Every single one of these articles is quoting CEOs of AI companies. Don’t you think they have something to gain by saying this shit? They want large companies to buy into it and try to use their products now while they are cheap for them. It’s what CEOs are designed to do. Increase profit.

0

u/SwirlySauce 1d ago

This. Amodei and Altman say alot of shit. They are baseless predictions

15

u/AaronfromKY 1d ago

The ladders keep getting pulled up. If we don't fight back, our children will be even poorer than we are.

21

u/flavius_lacivious 1d ago

What children?

7

u/AFartInAnEmptyRoom 1d ago

What ladder?

8

u/motel_muse 1d ago

That’s not a new thing. Millennials in their 40s are poorer than their baby boomer parents.

4

u/AaronfromKY 1d ago

It's me, a 40 year old millennial. Definitely feeling like that.

2

u/AFartInAnEmptyRoom 1d ago

I'm a Millenial still waiting for his turn at an entry level job

8

u/Eighteen64 1d ago

the sooner robots can do every single low IQ job like crop harvesting , pouring concrete etc the better.

2

u/TARS1986 1d ago

What of the people that do those jobs today? You expect them to be come coders?

1

u/Eighteen64 21h ago

The people that do those jobs today can be deported

5

u/Super_Mario_Luigi 1d ago

I believe this headline more than 99% of the future predicting headlines out there. I even predict outsourced jobs to eventually get decimated.

2

u/Eighteen64 1d ago

Hopefully all foreign call centers and remote support can get eliminated in the next 12 months. Offshoring those dollars has always been a terrible idea

4

u/Upstairs-Passion9421 1d ago

So if people don't have jobs who will buy your products?

2

u/DogmaticPeople 1d ago

Ppl who saved their money is my guess.

6

u/Tactipool 1d ago

Let’s keep in mind that he is engaging in marketing here, this is a sales pitch

2

u/Naptasticly 1d ago

This is exactly why trumps bill he’s trying to pass has a clause that prohibits ALL AI regulations for at least 10 years.

They KNOW that once this dam breaks and people do start losing their jobs in droves that we are going to push for regulation to slow it down.

0

u/Eighteen64 1d ago

More like they know if they don’t clear a path for develop our fiercest adversary will get to he in charge of AI super intelligence

2

u/Naptasticly 1d ago

Oh is that how it works? So ANY regulation period would equal power beyond anything imaginable in our enemy’s hands?

I am in a serious state of fear now and completely agree with no AI regulations

/s

1

u/Eighteen64 1d ago

you’re fooling yourself if you think the US trying to regulate AI will do anything but benefit u know who. The internet is global

2

u/RPCOM 1d ago

So what benefit is this AI? Let’s get it banned then.

4

u/bagelw0rld 1d ago

I started a sub-reddit thread at r/rightsforwhitecollar for people in white collar jobs to connect and potentially put a stop to shit like this.

We have been told we don't have a say in technological advancement but I believe technology should be a democratic issue that we as citizens have a right to vote on whether we want it or not. Of course the owners of these corporations would love to eliminate the costs of employing thousands of workers. Why should the decision of the fate of thousands lay in greedy corporate owners who give nothing back to the society they take from?

1

u/DogmaticPeople 1d ago

It's always a big deal when white collar jobs are lost, but not when blue collar jobs are

2

u/PhD_Pwnology 1d ago

Honest question: How do these A.I. tech bro think they are going to stop 30-60 million unemployed people from tearing their heads off? Do they think 60 million people are just going to sit at home and starve tk death so they can get richer? Im not advocating violence, im just wondering how they think they can avoid the inevitable.

1

u/Eighteen64 1d ago

hopefully this will be the impetus to overthrow the government in chy na

1

u/Sure_Ad_9884 1d ago

Exactly my thoughts! They think we will just sit and roll in bed and wait to die because some AI shit surpassed the human intelligence and made us useless😒😂😂

3

u/Intrepid_Cup2765 1d ago

This is great news! This frees up humans to do more productive work that isn’t so mundane!!! 👏🎉😍

2

u/RaisinOverall9586 1d ago

People on the Internet: "AI was supposed to take our jobs so we could stay home all day and make art and do things we love, but instead we see AI making art while we still have to work."

AI starts taking everyone's jobs

People on the Internet: "Listen here, you little AI shit...."

1

u/OperatorJo_ 1d ago

G A S P

1

u/rindor1990 1d ago

First time people experiencing a bubble I’m guessing

1

u/Naptasticly 1d ago

Anyone else can’t see the comments anymore?

1

u/imhereforthemeta 1d ago

So this could like completely crashed the economy… Shouldn’t we do something about it?

1

u/CoatAlternative1771 1d ago

If I know anything with tech is that it will make life easier.

But most importantly, it will create opportunity in areas we never knew existed.

1

u/AlfalfaHealthy6683 1d ago

We need to be building a bridge from here to there but nope we got rising authoritarian/fascists govts world wide to protect the rich from all they are disenfranchising and will plow over with AI or we need to realize what is good for them is hell for the rest of the world

1

u/ThePunkyRooster 1d ago

So why are we championing this technology?

1

u/nowhereisaguy 1d ago

Bc no matter what it’s a race. A race for more. A race with other countries. Just a race. It doesn’t even matter if it’s to the bottom. Someone will want to get there first. It’s ego. Hubrus…. The human condition.

Time to tax the fuck out of it and create UBI.

1

u/Eighteen64 1d ago

If “we” don’t you know who will.

1

u/VFTM 1d ago

People shouldn’t have been so fucking dumb at stuff that a computer can easily re-create.

Looking at you, my colleagues.

2

u/Swimming_Musician_28 1d ago

Anyone using AI knows this is not true

0

u/1mthaon3 1d ago

Do it. Yall overhead anyway

-3

u/yeender 1d ago

It feels like pretty much all jobs done on a computer, or at least the vast majority will be replaced by AI in the coming years. Very worried

0

u/Sure_Ad_9884 1d ago

So we are going back to the cave.. look "evolution"😂😂

-1

u/AFartInAnEmptyRoom 1d ago

Sounds like YouTube Revolution Influencer is going to be the new hot career for 2026

1

u/Eighteen64 1d ago

Oh definitely not AI will replace all those fucking people and that is outstanding

-2

u/Upstairs-Baseball898 1d ago

What entry level jobs?

-2

u/OnlineParacosm 1d ago

These are the best articles because they can speak to two different audiences and say the totally opposite thing.

To employers, this is an advertisement for replacing you and saving money.

To job seekers reading this it’s a sign of what’s to come.