Artificial intelligence is moving faster than many expected, and one of its leading voices has issued a stark warning: entry-level white-collar jobs may not even exist by the end of this decade.
Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, a major AI research company, believes that repetitive but variable tasks, the kind often given to freshers in law firms, consulting, finance, and administration, are particularly at risk. “If you think about first-year associates at law firms, most of their work is document review. It is repetitive, but every case is a little different. That is exactly the sort of thing AI is very good at, and it is getting better now,” Amodei said in an interview with the BBC.
He added that many CEOs would gladly use AI to cut costs and reduce reliance on junior staff. This, he warned, could soon wipe out nearly half of such roles.
This is not the first time Amodei has raised the alarm. Back in May, he cautioned that AI could eliminate 50 percent of entry-level white-collar jobs in just five years. What worries him most is that governments and the public are not taking the threat seriously. “Most people are unaware this is about to happen. It sounds crazy, and people just don’t believe it,” he said.
Amodei is not alone in his concerns. Geoffrey Hinton, often called the “godfather of AI,” has said that while AI will make companies more profitable, it could also trigger mass unemployment and widen the gap between the rich and the rest. “AI will make a few people much richer and most people poorer. That is not AI’s fault, it is the system we live in,” Hinton said.
Roman Yampolskiy, a professor at the University of Louisville, has predicted an even darker scenario. He believes AI could replace up to 99 percent of jobs by 2030, leaving even coders and prompt engineers vulnerable.
The message from these experts is clear. AI is not just coming for repetitive tasks. If the warnings are correct, it could transform the job market much faster, and much more dramatically, than most of us are ready for.
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