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It\u2019s not just entry-level workers who have never experienced a tech boom<\/a> that are fearing their looming replacement thanks to AI\u2014now even c-suite executives in the know are predicting their demise.\u00a0<\/p>\n Avital Balwit, the chief of staff at Anthropic, one of AI\u2019s hottest startups, has joined the growing list of senior tech professionals to weigh into our existential crisis since Geoffrey Hinton, the \u201cGodfather of AI,\u201d decided he had to \u201cblow the whistle\u201d on the technology he helped develop.<\/p>\n \u201cI am 25. The next three years might be the last few years that I work,\u201d the Gen Zer wrote in a personal essay in Palladium<\/em><\/a>.<\/em>\u00a0\u201cI am not ill, nor am I becoming a stay-at-home mom, nor have I been so financially fortunate to be on the brink of voluntary retirement.\u201d<\/p>\n Instead, working at the Google<\/a> and Amazon-backed $18 billion+ AI firm<\/a> has cemented her belief about the future: Her job, along with most others, is destined for obsolescence\u2014and anyone who thinks otherwise is in denial.<\/p>\n \u201cI stand at the edge of a technological development that seems likely, should it arrive, to end employment as I know it,\u201d Balwit explained.<\/p>\n \u201cThe general reaction to language models among knowledge workers is one of denial,\u201d she wrote, adding that although there are some tasks that AI can\u2019t yet do, like coding long sequences, it\u2019s set to improve at pace.<\/p>\n \u201cThe shared goal of the field of artificial intelligence is to create a system that can do anything,\u201d she warned. \u201cI expect us to reach it soon.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Research shows that the world of work is in for some serious upheaval.\u00a0<\/p>\n The investment bank Goldman Sachs<\/a> estimated that AI could replace the equivalent of 300 million full-time jobs globally in the coming years.<\/p>\n In the U.K., the government is preparing for a scenario in which advances in automation will lead to increased unemployment and poverty by 2030.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n Meanwhile, a McKinsey<\/a> study has warned that AI could force nearly 12 million US workers<\/a> to switch jobs by 2030\u2014with admin, manufacturing and sales workers among those most likely to be impacted.<\/p>\n \u201cGiven the current trajectory of the technology, I expect AI to first excel at any kind of online work,\u201d Balwit echoes. \u201cEssentially anything that a remote worker can do, AI will do better.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The jobs that AI will kill first? Copywriting, tax preparation, customer service, software development and contract law.<\/p>\n \u201cGenerally, tasks that involve reading, analyzing, and synthesizing information, and then generating content based on it, seem ripe for replacement by language models,\u201d Balwit warns.<\/p>\n Even if everyone is ultimately destined for unemployment, she predicts that those who have ditced corporate careers and become tradies<\/a> can expect to enjoy labour participation for \u201cmuch longer than five more years\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cRegulated industries like medicine or the civil service will have human involvement for longer, but even there, I expect an increasingly small number of human workers who are increasingly supplemented with AI systems working alongside them,\u201d Balwit adds.<\/p>\n Balwit\u2019s not the first to predict that AI will eliminate the need to work at all.<\/p>\n \u201cThere will come a point where no job is needed,\u201d Elon Musk similarly told Britain\u2019s Prime Minister<\/a> Rishi Sunak. \u201cYou can have a job if you want to have a job, for personal satisfaction, but the AI will be able to do everything.\u201d<\/p>\n Similarly, Balwit paints an optimistic picture of how unemployment could look in years to come\u2014and it\u2019s good news for those who\u2019d love to live like the \u201cton\u201d in Bridgerton or Downton Abbey\u2019s Crawley family.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the early modern era, landed gentry and similar were essentially unemployed,\u201d she says.\u00a0<\/p>\n Instead of commuting to a desk five days a week, they filled their days with hobbies, balls, and time with their loved ones.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we do manage to obtain a world where people have their material needs met but also have no need to work, aristocrats could be a relevant comparison,\u201d Balwit concluded.<\/p>\n Fortune<\/em> has contacted Balwit for comment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nAnything that a remote worker can do, AI will do better<\/h2>\n
Mass unemployment could lead to an aristocratic life for all<\/h2>\n
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