Anyone else fearing Anthropic more and more each day? Not from a perspective that they are doing so well, but rather that it's like an industry tornado, sucking up and destroying everything in it's path.
Yes. I think Anthropic's success with claude code + cowork and the way it's shredding through white-collar work is basically cementing the thesis of Geoffrey Hinton's latest paper (https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s12559-026-105...). I highly recommend reading it in full, but briefly:
1. Copernican Revolution -> We aren't the center of the universe
2. The Darwinian Revolution -> We aren't the pinnacle of life
3. The Freudian Revolution -> We aren't even in control of our own minds
4. The "Intuitive AI" Revolution -> We aren't the only form of intelligence
I think even a month ago I would've read this article and scoffed, but having used Claude Code almost exclusively at work for the last couple months it seems pretty undeniable that in-context-learning and a good enough harness is all you need to displace most "thinking" jobs that require just a bachelors. The hundreds of billions of dollars pouring into data center build-out basically hinges on this thesis, and frankly I trust the judgements of the billionaires financing these deals better than LLM-naysayers on hackernews (not to mention the non-public info they have access to). You don't need to reach superintelligence to still deeply, deeply affect society, and I think Anthropic was the first to build products that are actually good enough and, critically, hands-off enough to do just this. Every day it's clearer and clearer to me that "I was born into a poor family but am relatively intelligent and good at learning things, therefore I can find success" is exactly what will ultimately be eliminated as the outcome of this unless we get the government to step in and regulate.
I could go on and on, but the main point I'm trying to make is that you should definitely examine unease you feel about Anthropic, consider framing that unease in the context of Hinton's argument, and ask yourself what the implications may be.
> "I was born into a poor family but am relatively intelligent and good at learning things, therefore I can find success"
Nicely put, unconsciously this was my mindset in my 20s. In my 30s, I started questioning myself how come so many stupid people achieve great success. There must be more to success than just being relatively intelligent (just look into politicians - forgive generalization).
Once a nagging thought, now I find some comfort in it.
> The hundreds of billions of dollars pouring into data center build-out basically hinges on this thesis, and frankly I trust the judgements of the billionaires financing these deals better than LLM-naysayers on hackernews (not to mention the non-public info they have access to).
I actually think both perspectives can be true. If you look at (IMO) the most rational takes of "LLM-naysayers on hackernews", it's not that LLMs are useless, but it's that they're still just tools, and while they can do a lot of high-level "rearranging of past experience" that looks an awful lot like intelligence, human intelligence is still required for lots of higher level thinking tasks, and there look to be limits to the "just scale" approach.
The problem is there are still tons of jobs that actually don't require much high-level, human-only thinking where it's easy to see a clear path where AI obliterates all those jobs pretty quickly. Automating those jobs will still be probably one of the largest wealth transfers in history from labor to capital.
> The problem is there are still tons of jobs that actually don't require much high-level, human-only thinking where it's easy to see a clear path where AI obliterates all those jobs pretty quickly.
I heard this million times, but never examples of those jobs, at least ones that haven’t been decimated by automation already years ago. There was very little need for elevator attendants and data entrist already in 2023. Company I work for has robot doing the lifting in an automated warehouse, but there still guys there doing so many various things changing day by day that they are virtually indispensable for the whole corporation.
Another this is that of you destroy say 25-50% of all workforce with no replacement you destroy consumer demand and cause a massive Depression. I would fuckin invent new jobs where I Amodei.
> I heard this million times, but never examples of those jobs
Then you haven't been listening. The Bureau of Labor Statistics already listed 18 roles that are heavily susceptible to AI and have already begun to see impacts from AI. This was on the HN front page a few days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48162354
Plus, this doesn't even include obvious candidates that are ripe for disruption in the near future, like driving (millions of Americans drive for a living), radiologists, etc.
I have actually. The examples in that paywalled article seem to be various clerks and translators, ie. jobs that have been automated away for 20-30 years now. Your examples of of drivers and radiologists have been touted for years now and hiring of radiologists is actually up [1], similar to truck drivers [2].
Everybody* says there is massive job displacement either now or coming, but if you actually look at the data, there is little to no displacement. Theoretically there may he in the future, but seems that the technology just is not ready.
2. Most entry level jobs for current graduates in white collar fields. (See hiring rates for these positions)
3. Thousands of layoffs (mostly attributed to AI use, while not 100%, the Anthropic's specific marketing push has a huge influence on this - unlike OAI and other labs)
4. All low-code products/startups
5. Web agencies who did small websites for local businesses
While AI industry push is there for all of the above, Anthropic's specific marketing/PR is specifically directed towards forced adoption of AI and burning tokens, unlike from other labs.
Hmmm… maybe. I think not. It really depends on your other claims below, with which I mostly disagree.
2. Most entry level jobs for current graduates in white collar fields. (See hiring rates for these positions)
Maybe a small amount. Entry level white collar jobs have a low hiring rate for other reasons, imho.
3. Thousands of layoffs (mostly attributed to AI use, while not 100%, the Anthropic's specific marketing push has a huge influence on this - unlike OAI and other labs)
What they say and what the actual reasons are not the same, imho. Correcting for over hiring is the actual main reason.
4. All low-code products/startups
Low-code and no-code products in the hands of someone who doesn’t have a developer’s mind and/or experience usually ends up as a mess, and quickly becomes an unusable mess.
I know of exactly two people who have done successfully used AI to make a low-code/no-code product. One is just highly motivated and wicked smart. The other did a minor in CS a long time ago (works in a different field). Everyone else shows me a pile of garbage and asks me how to fix it (answer: throw it away and start from scratch).
5. Web agencies who did small websites for local businesses
As with 4 above, the only site a local business can make for themselves is one that functions as a business card… at best. Usually it looks more like a business card that a kindergartner made. They simply don’t understand what makes a website good for their business, therefore they cannot direct AI to make it for them.
There’s a lot to criticize about AI, imho, but these aren’t on the list.
I personally know several digital marketing people who were "tech savvy" but had no programming experience who have launched websites that would have cost them thousands of dollars to build.
So much of what you'd previously pay a "real" freelance developer or web "agency" to build is no less "garbage" than what engineers would call the average vibe-coded web app.
Claude in particular is today really surprisingly good at taking examples and a layperson's description of a website and building something that looks good and is functional.
For obvious reasons, I think many developers/engineers don't want to accept this. They'd prefer to believe that there's something special about their craft that means something produced by AI isn't good enough. But the honest will acknowledge that spaghetti code and crap pre-dated AI.
> They'd prefer to believe that there's something special about their craft that means something produced by AI isn't good enough.
I know I can code and get better results than most people can with an LLM but I've came to realize that it doesn't matter and people just want to see results (even if they are kind of wrong).
In other words, with the website example, I've realized that even if the agency can do something 10x better, most people will choose to "buy" the AI website just because it's free or super cheap, and that makes me sad
> digital marketing people who were "tech savvy" but had no programming experience who have launched websites that would have cost them thousands of dollars to build.
Static Websites have been commoditizatized for decades now. We had :
- one-click deploy Open-Source CMS
- single page places like Geocities providing own domain
- design templates where you just add your own logo, tagline, etc
This is just yet another way to do that but the ability to have that result was there for "digital marketing people" since the early 2000s, if not earlier. In fact since the Internet existed there have been tools and resources for non developer to make Websites.
PS: it's roughly the same for mobile Apps, namely having a basic App like a ToDo list had had scaffolding for years, including countless dedicated to non-developers.
I'm not talking about static websites. I'm talking about tech-savvy non-engineers who have been able to build fully-functional dynamic websites (with user registration, dashboards, integrations with third-party services, etc.) using AI.
I think way too many engineers underestimate the ability of tech-savvy non-engineers to use AI to build quite sophisticated applications today.
Would these scale to millions of users? Are they totally secure? Surely no. But if we're being honest, most freelancers and agencies haven't been producing highly-scalable, highly-secure work product either.
The question wasn't about the quality of the work done or a criticism of AI in general. But those were areas where people were employed and got paid to do a job. The output may not have been acceptable from Silicon Valley standards - but they were still employed and paid taxes.
It's about whole industries/sectors getting destroyed by a single company. 'Overhiring' is a result of changed business situations. Companies don't overhire hundreds and thousands of people intentionally to let them go. They hired to fill a need. Market conditions changed, competition changed.
Entry level hiring is mostly destroyed mainly because of Anthropic's messaging. Other labs don't push that hard on every vertical because they created a skill with some .md files - and pretend is a highly skilled AI.
I'm not against Anthropic doing it, I'm just saying what they're doing at the moment. Given enough time, Anthropic will be coming after every job that can be done by a computer - including yours and mine.
> Anthropic will be coming after every job that can be done by a computer - including yours and mine
It’s not something I worry about.
What I, and many of my peers, excel at is taking vague inputs from end users and putting them into actionable specs. Often times this requires considerable education of the end user.
AI might be able to suggest best practices, but getting someone from malformed ideas into an actionable path forward is a very human thing.
Sure, tech-savvy lucid thinking clients with time on their hands might not need my services any more at some point, but… yeah… that’s not my client base.
I get paid to solve business problems. Everything I’ve done in the past could have theoretically been done by my customers, but it wasn’t. AI removes a small amount of the friction for a small portion of the market, but that’s just not a market-wide phenomenon.
“Super smart, super savvy, highly-motivated, and prefer to spend time instead of money” does not describe most business owners.
Revenue growth from an existing customer base doesn't necessarily mean the company is healthy for the long term. Look at Salesforce and Figma revenue reporting vs their stock futures.
Fair, of course price is a factor in whether one product is better than another, and yes it’s my opinion that things becoming more affordable/junkier, is not always a net increase in quality of life.
There's a lot of deception going on with job numbers. Everyone knows there was a hiring spree during the pandemic and companies have been gradually shedding off excess weight since then. AI of course is just another excuse to shed more numbers.
I'd prefer it if people looking at hiring numbers would compare it with the pre-pandemic levels.
Not really. I mean it’s not like they are particularly far ahead. Maybe a small lead on model performance, but nothing particularly significant. All the major players are within 6 months of each other. As soon as model improvements plateau there will be no observable difference between providers.
its destroyed my codebases with ai slop , errors, and code maintenance nightmares going forward. i feel bad for anyone having to work on ai generated code.
1. Copernican Revolution -> We aren't the center of the universe
2. The Darwinian Revolution -> We aren't the pinnacle of life
3. The Freudian Revolution -> We aren't even in control of our own minds
4. The "Intuitive AI" Revolution -> We aren't the only form of intelligence
I think even a month ago I would've read this article and scoffed, but having used Claude Code almost exclusively at work for the last couple months it seems pretty undeniable that in-context-learning and a good enough harness is all you need to displace most "thinking" jobs that require just a bachelors. The hundreds of billions of dollars pouring into data center build-out basically hinges on this thesis, and frankly I trust the judgements of the billionaires financing these deals better than LLM-naysayers on hackernews (not to mention the non-public info they have access to). You don't need to reach superintelligence to still deeply, deeply affect society, and I think Anthropic was the first to build products that are actually good enough and, critically, hands-off enough to do just this. Every day it's clearer and clearer to me that "I was born into a poor family but am relatively intelligent and good at learning things, therefore I can find success" is exactly what will ultimately be eliminated as the outcome of this unless we get the government to step in and regulate.
I could go on and on, but the main point I'm trying to make is that you should definitely examine unease you feel about Anthropic, consider framing that unease in the context of Hinton's argument, and ask yourself what the implications may be.