The AI Shockwave Very Few Are Ready For

White-collar work is next. We can prep or be blindsided.

Anthropic’s CEO, Dario Amodei, just lit a flare into the future. In an Axios interview, he says what many of us have been circling around:

“Up to 50% of entry-level white-collar jobs could be gone in 5 years.”

Not threatened. Not redefined. Gone.

Finance, law, tech, consulting—fields once seen as “safe” are about to get flattened. Amodei warns that we’re drifting toward 10–20% unemployment without a shred of serious prep from policymakers or CEOs. His suggestion? Tax AI-generated output to fund the transition. A kind of economic airbag.

I read that and didn’t flinch. Not because it’s wrong—because it’s already happening.

We’re not staring into the future. We’re knee-deep in it. I’ve seen GPTs plan my finances, draft legal memos, design brand identities, and sketch business models in seconds. AI isn’t coming for knowledge work—it’s in it. Living in our tabs. Replacing internships. Gutting the old ladder.

Here’s where I land:

• This isn’t a doomsday call. It’s a wake-up one.

• The “ladder” up through the white-collar world was already creaking. AI just kicked out the bottom rungs.

• Human work isn’t over—but it is getting redefined fast. Emotional labor, trust, strategy, taste, moral courage—those matter more now, not less.

• But none of that saves us if power centralizes. If a few companies own all the AI productivity, we’ll get cheap services and expensive futures.

I’m not against AI. I’m all in—I use it constantly. But the question isn’t “can it do this?” It’s “who controls it, and who benefits?”

We need faster policy, smarter adaptation, and deeper humanity in our responses.

We need more people with their eyes wide open.

If you knew your job—or your kid’s—might not exist in five years, what would you do differently now?

—Ray