"Silicon Valley's artificial intelligence (AI) boom has sparked widespread panic about the future of human labor, a moment summed up by AI executive Matt Shumer's viral essay likening this moment in white-collar work to February 2020, before the pandemic devastated American life. Shumer warned that white-collar workers have to figure out plan B right now, because a Covid-like extinction event is coming for white-collar work."
"Almost simultaneously, Microsoft's AI chief Mustafa Suleyman gave it 18 months before anyone looking at a computer for a living will be out of work within that timeframe. This was a revival of sorts for the sort of doomsday predictions that marked the first half of 2025 before going ominously silent. Anthropic's Dario Amodei, for instance, predicted that AI would eliminate half of all entry-level white-collar jobs, while Ford CEO Jim Farley said it would wipe out half of white-collar jobs, full-stop."
"Tanmai Gopal says these dire predictions are a classic case of Silicon Valley self-projection, even narcissism. The co-founder and CEO of PromptQL, a $1 billion-plus Bay Area unicorn that helps companies with AI adoption, told Fortune in a recent interview that the AI doomsday predictions definitely contain a grain of truth while also being massively overstated. "That's 100% what's happening where you have a bunch of ... people who are in the hype cycle.""
An AI boom in Silicon Valley has triggered alarm over potential widespread white-collar job losses, fueled by dramatic predictions from industry executives forecasting rapid displacement. Several prominent figures warned of near-term extinction-like impacts on office work, while other leaders predicted elimination of large shares of entry-level white-collar roles. Some observers contend these forecasts mix valid concerns with exaggeration driven by regional self-projection, hype cycles, and incentives tied to startup funding rounds. Company founders argue that enthusiasm in local AI communities leads to projecting capabilities into unfamiliar domains and that timing of dire predictions often aligns with fundraising motivations.
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