The CEO of a top AI startup gave a stark warning about the tech's impact on the labor market

Business Insider

4 days ago

Good morning! A federal court ruled President Donald Trump doesn't have the authority to impose some of his tariffs. The three-judge panel's unanimous ruling declared the tariffs would be vacated, throwing a massive wrench into what has been a key piece of Trump's second term. The federal government has filed a notice of appeal on the court's decision.
We're also looking at Anthropic's CEO stark warning about the tech's impact on the labor market.
What's on deck
Markets: The internet has a new favorite meme trade.
Business: Elon Musk says his time as a government employee is coming to an end and thanks Trump.
But first, AI in the office.
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The big story
AI's new job
Getty Images; Chelsea Jia Feng/BI
A top AI executive is ringing the alarm bell on … AI.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei predicted AI could eliminate half of all entry-level white-collar jobs and push unemployment to as high as 20% within the next five years.
The above might seem like a coy way of touting a product's power in an ultra-competitive space, but Amodei told Axios he has "a duty and an obligation to be honest about what is coming."
Some companies are ready to push the limits of an AI-led workforce. Take Retool, a platform for building AI applications. Its CEO, David Hsu, told BI's Lakshmi Varanasi its clients are asking " How do we get LLMs to actually replace labor?"
It wasn't always supposed to be like this. Remember when AI was going to supercharge employees? The tech was going to make us as efficient as possible! Humans and AI — the best collab since peanut butter and jelly.
So what happened?
AI costs a lot of money to develop, and that's a problem with so much economic uncertainty. Sprinkle in an industry push to increase efficiency and reduce bureaucracy, and robots suddenly look much better than humans.
The great AI automation comes with risks, though. (And I'm not talking about entrusting your business to a black box you don't really understand.)
As BI's Katie Notopoulos recently detailed, the excitement a CEO (and their investors) has over AI adoption isn't always matched by their customer base. Just ask Duolingo.
I hate to leave you on such a downer, especially right before a summer Friday. Here are some ways people are making AI work for them.
Mark Quinn saw the work he was doing at a startup quickly become irrelevant thanks to the launch of GPT-4. It was a bitter pill to swallow, but Quinn found a silver lining: use AI to help find his next gig. Here's how he did it.
AI was supposed to kill ad agencies. (At least, that's what OpenAI's CEO Sam Altman once predicted.) But three creative directors told BI's Lara O'Reilly how AI has helped them win more business.
Finally, something for the young developers out there. Plenty of tech executives have said junior coders are an endangered species thanks to AI's programming capabilities. But AWS executive Rory Richardson sees AI giving a big boost to people early in their careers, allowing them to catch up to veteran employees. She's not alone in viewing AI as the great equalizer in the workplace.
3 things in markets
1. GameStop made its first-ever crypto investment. Making good on its promise to buy bitcoin, the gaming retailer announced that it purchased 4,710 tokens, which are worth about $510 million. It's the latest company to add bitcoin to its balance sheet.
2. For Wall Street, TACO Tuesday is now every day. Investors are living by a new rule to play the market: TACO, or " Trump Always Chickens Out," the idea that markets can bet on Trump walking back tariff proposals.
3. Wealthy clients wanted. JPMorgan is opening 14 new financial centers across four states, offering highly specialized services to people with at least $750,000 in deposits and investments. It's part of the bank's greater mission to woo the millionaire class.
3 things in tech
1. Meta wants to get physical. The tech giant is working on a project to open physical stores and hire retail workers, per an internal communication seen by BI. The plan could boost its hardware products' sales, although it's unclear how many stores Meta might open and when.
2. Apple's playing catch-up in the AI race. Apple has very few of the AI building blocks its competitors enjoy, some of which have been in the making for 25 years. It may need to partner with rivals or make acquisitions to catch up, BI's Alistair Barr writes.
3. Nvidia beat Wall Street's Q1 forecast. The chip giant reported revenue of $44.06 billion, compared to estimates of $43.32 billion, with the stock up 3% in after-hours trading. However, Nvidia's China sales were hit hard by US export restrictions, and it expects to take $8 billion in losses of H20 chips revenue in Q2.
3 things in business
1. Millennial divorce is here, and it's expensive. Divorce isn't as common among millennials as it was among boomers, but it's much more financially disruptive. It can potentially decimate savings and lock divorcees out of the housing market. Often, women pay the steepest price.
2. Elon Musk's exit from the government. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO announced on Wednesday his time as a US government employee is coming to an end, and thanked President Trump for the opportunity to "reduce wasteful spending" at DOGE. His announcement came a day after he criticized Trump's "big beautiful bill," saying it undermined DOGE's work.
3. Trump's Big Law losing streak. Federal judges have blocked the Trump administration's executive orders targeting WilmerHale, Jenner & Block, and Perkins Coie, and they're citing Trump's deal with Paul Weiss as an example. Here are five of the sharpest takedowns from judges so far.
In other news
A Carta exec's resignation letter accused the CEO of sexism. She says she didn't write it.
Wired's editor told BI's Peter Kafka how she got 62,000 new subscribers in two weeks.
Marc Benioff-backed influencer agency Whalar Group is buying a creator startup for $20 million as M&A ramps up.
'Lilo & Stitch' is a smash hit. Here are the movies Disney could remake next.
A global talent leader at EY shares the three soft skills she looks for in job applicants.
A Salesforce exec tells BI there's an even more important skill for employees than coding.
McKinsey's staff numbers have dropped by more than 10% in the last 18 months.
My name is Chad. Yes, I'm white, work an office job, and sometimes I wear a vest.
Getty Images; Jenny Chang-Rodriguez/BI
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What's happening today
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