Claude maker and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, whose AI shook tech stocks and wiped out billions, warns about white-collar jobs, shares advice for young techies

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has a warning that artificial intelligence (AI) could wipe out half of all entry-level white-collar jobs within five years. Amodei has also advised students and young professionals to pivot towards human-centered skills and steer clear of AI-dominated fields such as software engineering and math. He emphasizes tasks involving relating to people and suggests that students focus on areas like semiconductor space, which blends traditional and physical engineering. Dario Amodei made the remarks while speaking at an episode of Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath's WTF podcast, reports TOI.

Dario Amodei is the co-founder of AI company Anthropic, which is behind the Claude chatbot that wiped billions from software, cybersecurity and other major stocks.

'Focus on tasks that involve relating to people'

Dario Amodei advised people planning their careers to focus on roles that involve human interaction, as coding and other technical fields become increasingly dominated by AI. His remarks follow a warning he made last year that artificial intelligence could wipe out half of all white-collar jobs within the next five years.


When asked about the industries that AI will disrupt and what skills college goers and upcoming entrepreneurs should learn, Amodei said, "I would think about tasks that are human-centred, tasks that involve relating to people. I think the stuff like code and software engineering is becoming more and more kind of AI-focused, like things like maths and science.”

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For 25-year-olds who are trying to choose a profession, Amodei said, “Anything where you're building on AI, and if AI is the tailwind, you can be part of some other part of the supply chain, something in the semiconductor space, which, I think, is – that's one example. It has an element of the physical world and more traditional engineering, not software engineering. Again, the very kind of human-centred professions.

That is something I would think about. And I think the other thing I always say is that, in a world where AI can kind of generate or create anything, having basic critical thinking skills may be the most important thing for success. I worry about these AI models that generate images and videos. And we don't make models that generate images and videos for many reasons, but this is one of them.

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It's really hard to tell what's real from what's not. So, a significant part of success may be having the street smarts not to get fooled by... I mean, hopefully, we can crack down on and regulate some of this fake content.

But assume we can't; critical thinking skills will be really important, and you don't want to fall for fake things. You don't want to have false beliefs. You don't want to get scammed. That's really advice that I would give to someone.”