There's little evidence AI is destroying large numbers of white-collar jobs today. But five developments show the potential for massive future job and workplace disruption.
- A new report from Goldman Sachs Research warns: "AI can potentially automate tasks that account for 25% of all work hours in the U.S. This significant exposure has raised concerns around widespread and permanent job loss, sparking fears of a 'job apocalypse' or 'humans going the way of horses.'"
- Anthropic revealed this week that one of its AI tools, Claude Code, built a new product, Cowork, which allows others to use AI for workplace tasks normally done by humans — creating presentations, summarizing meetings, consolidating research. You read that right: AI built AI that will displace human work with AI. Use that for a glimpse of what's coming.
- Some top tech leaders are talking privately about losing interest in H-1B visas — the ones tech companies use to hire top overseas talent. The reason: They now assume AI will do the work.
- The Wall Street Journal reports that a hot new San Francisco startup, Mercor, has hired more than 30,000 contractors to recruit specialists, from psychologists to dermatologists, to train AI to do their jobs. The company got a $10 billion valuation for a reason.
- Elon Musk, in a new "Moonshots" podcast episode, says AI is good enough today to replace half of white-collar jobs. He also argues it's "pointless" to go to medical school except for "social reasons." Robots, he says, will be doing surgery at scale within three years.
