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New York Times
2 days ago
- Business
- New York Times
This A.I. Company Wants to Take Your Job
Years ago, when I started writing about Silicon Valley's efforts to replace workers with artificial intelligence, most tech executives at least had the decency to lie about it. 'We're not automating workers, we're augmenting them,' the executives would tell me. 'Our A.I. tools won't destroy jobs. They'll be helpful assistants that will free workers from mundane drudgery.' Of course, lines like those — which were often intended to reassure nervous workers and give cover to corporate automation plans — said more about the limitations of the technology than the motives of the executives. Back then, A.I. simply wasn't good enough to automate most jobs, and it certainly wasn't capable of replacing college-educated workers in white-collar industries like tech, consulting and finance. That is starting to change. Some of today's A.I. systems can write software, produce detailed research reports and solve complex math and science problems. Newer A.I. 'agents' are capable of carrying out long sequences of tasks and checking their own work, the way a human would. And while these systems still fall short of humans in many areas, some experts are worried that a recent uptick in unemployment for college graduates is a sign that companies are already using A.I. as a substitute for some entry-level workers. On Thursday, I got a glimpse of a post-labor future at an event held in San Francisco by Mechanize, a new A.I. start-up that has an audacious goal of automating all jobs — yours, mine, those of our doctors and lawyers, the people who write our software and design our buildings and care for our children. 'Our goal is to fully automate work,' said Tamay Besiroglu, 29, one of Mechanize's founders. 'We want to get to a fully automated economy, and make that happen as fast as possible.' Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Yahoo
01-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Anthropic Researchers Warn Of A 'Pretty Terrible Decade' Where AI Outpaces Robotics And People's Main Benefit Is They're 'Fantastic Robots'
Artificial intelligence is moving fast, and according to researchers from Anthropic, an AI startup backed by Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) founder Jeff Bezos, it's about to upend white collar work around the world. In a recent discussion on Dwarkesh Patel's podcast, Anthropic researchers Sholto Douglas and Trenton Bricken explored what they see as an almost inevitable future: widespread automation of desk jobs. Don't Miss: Hasbro, MGM, and Skechers trust this AI marketing firm — Douglas said the transition may happen sooner than many expect. 'There is this whole spectrum of crazy futures. But the one that I feel we're almost guaranteed to get—this is a strong statement to make—is one where, at the very least, you get a drop in white collar workers at some point in the next five years,' he said. 'I think it's very likely in two, but it seems almost overdetermined in five.' Bricken agreed, saying, 'We should expect to see them automated within the next five years.' That kind of shift, Douglas added, 'completely changes the world over the next decade.' Even if progress in training algorithms slows down, the models that already exist are good enough to perform many white collar tasks, especially if they're fed the right data. 'Even if algorithmic progress stalls out, and we just never figure out how to keep progress going... the current suite of algorithms are sufficient to automate white collar work, provided you have enough of the right kinds of data,' Douglas said. Trending: Invest where it hurts — and help millions heal:. They argued that it's financially justifiable to automate office tasks, even if it means you need to 'hand spoon' every single task to the model. The economic impact of automating or drastically reducing white collar jobs, they said, could be massive. And countries that don't prepare could be left behind. Douglas summed it up this way: 'Plan for the case where white collar work is automatable. And then consider, what does that mean for your economy? What should you be doing to prepare policy?' Douglas warned that countries without highly advanced, large-scale AI models, also called 'frontier models'—such as India, Nigeria or Australia—will have tough decisions to make. He advised governments to start investing in compute infrastructure, AI companies, and the broader tech ecosystem. 'Compute becomes the most valuable resource in the world,' he said. 'The GDP of your economy is dramatically affected by how much compute you can deploy.'While robots still struggle with physical tasks like opening doors, AI is already capable of coding and performing many computer-based jobs. That could result in a strange future where machines do the thinking and humans handle the physical labor. 'The really scary future is one in which AIs can do everything except for the physical robotic tasks,' Bricken said. '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.' Douglas pointed out that this transitional phase could be a 'pretty terrible decade.' If jobs are lost but scientific breakthroughs and robotic deployment lag behind, then improvements in daily life may stall. He said the result could be a period where people's main value is their ability to do physical tasks that AI cannot yet handle. People's main comparative advantage in that case would be as 'fantastic robots.' 'That's a shocking, shocking world,' he said. Read Next:Can you guess how many retire with a $5,000,000 nest egg? .UNLOCKED: 5 NEW TRADES EVERY WEEK. Click now to get top trade ideas daily, plus unlimited access to cutting-edge tools and strategies to gain an edge in the markets. Get the latest stock analysis from Benzinga? (AMZN): Free Stock Analysis Report This article Anthropic Researchers Warn Of A 'Pretty Terrible Decade' Where AI Outpaces Robotics And People's Main Benefit Is They're 'Fantastic Robots' originally appeared on © 2025 Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
