Anthropic CEO: AI Could Wipe Out Entry-Level White-Collar Jobs Within Five Years

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has reiterated that artificial intelligence could soon displace large numbers of entry-level workers.

Speaking to Amol Rajan on BBC’s Radical, Amodei said repetitive-yet-variable tasks such as document review in law firms, consulting, administration, and finance are especially vulnerable.

“Specifically, if we look at jobs like entry-level associates in law firms, there’s a lot of document review. It’s repetitive, but every example is different. That’s something AI is quite good at,” Amodei explained.

He added that many CEOs privately view AI less as a tool to “augment” workers and more as a way to cut costs and reduce headcount.

“This isn’t a distant possibility,” Amodei stressed. “The technology is already very good at entry-level work and quickly getting better.”

His remarks echo earlier warnings. In May, he told Axios that AI could eliminate up to 50% of entry-level office jobs within five years, potentially pushing unemployment to 10–20%, while industry leaders and governments are “sugarcoating” the risks.

Amodei has also said the impact won’t stop at back-office work, predicting earlier this year that AI could generate 90% of software code within six months and “essentially all” of it within a year.

Not everyone agrees. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang dismissed Amodei’s grim outlook, saying AI would transform jobs rather than erase them. OpenAI’s Sam Altman also argued that society won’t allow half of jobs to vanish, and that new, better roles will appear.

Still, some executives share Amodei’s concerns. Ford CEO Jim Farley recently predicted AI could replace “literally half” of US white-collar workers.