Latest news with #Bricken
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Anthropic Researchers Warn That Humans Could End Up Being "Meat Robots" Controlled by AI
Researchers at one of the world's leading AI labs are warning that humans may soon be little more than "meat robots" for near-future artificial intelligence systems. During a recent interview with AI podcaster Dwarkesh Patel, Anthropic researchers Sholto Douglas and Trenton Bricken were surprisingly casual when fretting that the technology they're working to build may soon render us into AI-controlled androids — or, at the very least, further grim job loss to the technology. "There is this whole spectrum of crazy futures," Douglas, who worked at Google DeepMind until earlier this year, told the 24-year-old podcaster. One such future involves a "drop in white collar workers" over the next two to five years, the researcher said — one that he thinks will come to pass "even if algorithmic progress stalls out." Bricken, meanwhile, had more grandiose prognostications about the future he and his colleagues in the AI space are building. "The really scary future is one in which AIs can do everything except for the physical robotic tasks," he declared. "In which case, you'll have humans with AirPods, and glasses and there'll be some robot overlord controlling the human through cameras by just telling it what to do." (Yes, you read that right — this AI researcher did, in fact, refer to fellow humans as "it." ) "Basically," Bricken continued, "you're having human meat robots." Douglas quickly jumped in at that point to, it seems, defend the technology. "Not necessarily saying," he interjected, "that that's what the AIs would want to do or anything like that." Regardless of AI intent — if such a thing could exist — Douglas reasoned that we humans are in for a "pretty terrible decade" as the technology takes over. Human labor will, Douglas predicted, primarily be valued upon how well we can do physical work that AI cannot, like so many Taskrabbits for the algorithmic powers that be — but luckily, we make "fantastic robots" to that end. "That's a shocking, shocking world," he concluded. We've got to say we agree. More on AI robots: New AI Startup Giving Robots Virtual Heart Rate, Body Temperature, Sweating Response So They Can Better Emulate Human Emotions Like Fear and Anxiety
Business Insider
23-05-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
Anthropic researchers tell college students how to get ahead in their careers in an AI-obsessed world
The secret to building a career in a world where AI is the main character: Lean into it, say two Anthropic researchers. In an episode of the "Dwarkesh Podcast" released on Thursday, a pair of the researchers behind Claude — Sholto Douglas and Trenton Bricken — shared three strategies for early careers. They suggested thinking big picture, being lazy, and not letting a previous job stop you from working with AI. Douglas, who works on reinforcement learning, said everyone should imagine what they want to do, now that AI can help. "If you had 10 engineers at your beck and call, what would you do?" Douglas said. He added, "What problems, and domains suddenly become tractable? That's the world you want to prepare for." He suggested that people gain technical depth by studying biology, physics, and computer science and that they think hard about what challenges they want to solve. Bricken, who researches mechanistic interpretability at the AI company, said college students and young professionals should "be lazier" and outsource more to AI. "You need to critically think about the things you're currently doing, and what an AI could actually be better at doing, and then go and try it," Bricken said. The researchers' third piece of advice was about not letting "sunk costs" get in the way. Sunk costs are a concept in which people continue to invest more time and resources because so much has already been spent. "Whatever kind of specialization that you've done, maybe just doesn't matter that much," Bricken said. "My colleagues at Anthropic are excited about AI. They just don't let their previous career be a blocker." "It's not as if they were in AI forever," he added. People across industries are talking about how to AI-proof their careers as AI chatbots and agents become more powerful and capable. The technology is displacing jobs in sectors like software engineering, content creation, and consulting. Top tech leaders have said all professionals need to think about how AI can improve their workflows. Last month, Uber's CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, said people must stop perceiving AI as a "tech thing" and see it as a tool for everyone. "Within Uber, we're a highly technical company — 30,000 employees — and not enough of my employees know how to use AI constructively," Khosrowshahi said, adding that the company is working to change that. Nvidia's CEO, Jensen Huang, has repeatedly touted the use of AI agents in companies, saying that they will not only change every job but will also secure employment instead of hurting it. "AIs will recruit other AIs to solve problems. AIs will be in Slack channels with each other, and with humans," Huang said late last year. "So we'll just be one large employee base if you will — some of them are digital and AI, and some of them are biological."
