Subject: Just when you felt it was safe - AI
Sure, ChatGPT comes to your aid when you do your homework. Sure, it looks over the doctor's shoulders during a mammogram. It searches for better airfare.

https://fortune.com/2025/05/28...

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei says AI could wipe out roughly 50% of all entry-level white-collar jobs. The cuts could come within five years, he says, causing unemployment to spike as high as 20%. He’s urging consumers and lawmakers to prepare now to protect the nation.

Amodei isn’t turning away from AI, it should be noted. Anthropic has just released its latest chatbot, Claude 4, and is bullish on the advances the technology can bring. He also said there is still time to mitigate the doomsday scenario by increasing public awareness and helping workers better understand how to utilize AI and navigate the transition.

Amodei is hardly the first person to warn about AI’s impact on the job market. LinkedIn’s chief economic opportunity officer, Aneesh Raman, earlier this month said artificial intelligence is increasingly threatening the types of jobs that historically have served as stepping stones for young workers. And there are a growing number of stories from workers who saw their six-figure jobs disappear without warning, bringing chaos to their lives.

And venture capitalist Kai-Fu Lee has called predictions that AI will displace 50% of jobs by 2027 “uncannily accurate.”

I have, for a few years now, talked about the dangers of AI to white collar jobs - the more analytical, the more vulnerable. Accountants, lawyers, engineers, computer programmers, yes, even doctors. If AI can allow a coder do the work of ten, what happens to the other nine students who majored in computer sciences? If CAD systems become intelligent, what happens to architects and interior designers? Based on the very beginning of using AI in military applications, huge changes could be expected (https://www.kyivpost.com/analy...).

Who is safe? Electricians, plumbers, grave diggers - not menial jobs, but certainly manual jobs.

For generations (forever?), those who did not work were "unemployed" and held in low esteem by society. We are verging on an age where the word "unemployed" will have to be substituted by "excess leisure time" in order for our society to survive. The problem will be that the decrease in taxes collected will not be sufficient to accommodate this change. The obvious solution would be to tax AI CPU chips - with the obvious countermeasure to move them off-shore. (Although, realistically, since the major AI companies are already among the richest in the US, a cynic would expect them to follow in the footsteps of Musk and simply finance the elections of the powers that be).

The more dependent on an educated elite that a country is, the more vulnerable it is likely to be.

Get prepared (how, I'm not sure).

Jeff