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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
Technology
Varsha Bansal

AI was supposed to destroy jobs. Where’s the carnage?

A giant robotic hand clenches into a fist around the head of a worker at an office desk, symbolizing AI job threats
AI was supposed to massively displace workers across across industries. Economist say it’s having a very different effect. Composite: Rita Liu/The Guardian/Getty Images

The prediction was stark: artificial intelligence advancements would wipe out jobs en masse. “Half” of all entry-level white collar jobs would vanish, Anthropic’s CEO, Dario Amodei, said in May 2025. A month later, OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, went further, foreseeing the end of “certain job categories”. Companies began citing AI in their layoffs. Workers organized. And students reconsidered their future careers.

But a year later, the mass carnage hasn’t shown up.

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