AI might be on track to cure cancer and supercharge economic growth. But first, it may wipe out millions of jobs.
That was the warning from Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, who told Axios this week that AI could eliminate half of all entry-level white-collar roles within five years. And that unemployment could spike to 10-20% as a direct result.
On Episode 151 of The Artificial Intelligence Show, I spoke to Marketing AI Institute founder and CEO Paul Roetzer about AI's impact on entry-level work. And what we found was as clear as it was alarming:
Most people have no idea what’s coming. And the people who do aren’t saying enough about it.
Amodei’s message is blunt. CEOs will quietly stop hiring, then replace humans with AI the moment it becomes viable to do so, a shift he says could unfold almost overnight. And despite his warnings, he says most government officials, CEOs, and workers are either unaware or unwilling to confront the implications.
That contradiction, between the astonishing power of AI and the silence around its fallout, is what drove the conversation this week. Amodei is building the very technology that could displace millions, yet he’s also among the few executives willing to publicly admit what that could mean.
"We, as the producers of this technology, have a duty and an obligation to be honest about what is coming," Amodei told Axios.
And people are starting to listen.
Roetzer’s own post on LinkedIn, reacting to the Axios piece, exploded:
It garnered 151,000 impressions, hundreds of comments, and thoughtful, concerned debate from far outside the usual AI echo chamber.
"This was a lot of people that I don't usually see in the comment threads posting thoughts, questions, and concerns about it," says Roetzer.
"It just feels that, for some reason, [Amodei] saying this moved the dialogue forward, which I see as a very positive thing."
That discussion is already moving beyond early adopters and into family conversations. Parents are increasingly asking Roetzer what career paths make sense for their kids. Students are wondering if degrees in business or computer science will still be valuable. And Roetzer believes that’s just the beginning.
"My hypothesis is that we will start to see data emerge through the summer and into the fall that shows AI is having a clear impact on jobs that the quiet AI layoffs we've been talking about are going to start to compound," he says.
The timing matters.
If Roetzer is right, the class of 2025 will hit a very different job market than the one their older siblings entered. And the class of 2026? They could graduate into a full-blown economic crisis.
"This is going to be top of mind and core to economic discussions," says Roetzer. And, he notes, mid-2026 comes right in the middle of the start of midterm elections in the US.
If unemployment and underemployment surge, the politics of AI could shift dramatically. Already, influential voices like Steve Bannon are predicting that AI's job-killing potential will be a major issue in the 2028 campaign, according to Axios.
And it may not just be government that gets involved. Roetzer predicts other institutions—including the Catholic Church—may soon weigh in.
"It's going to cross over into a true societal issue very soon," he says.
Axios didn't just sound the alarm by interviewing Amodei. In a separate article, the company's CEO also offered a roadmap for responsible leadership. At Axios, for instance, managers are required to justify why AI won’t do a job before hiring for it.
That's a good step for individuals and companies for individuals and companies to take, too.
"Individually, we have to start looking at our own industries, looking at our own companies, being more proactive to prepare," says Roetzer.
That also includes having frank conversations at home and in schools, preparing students to navigate a future where AI isn't just a tool—it's the competition.
The class of 2026 could graduate into an economy where AI agents outperform them at entry-level tasks—and where companies quietly stop offering those roles altogether. Axios' CEO goes so far as to tell employees: "You are committing career suicide if you're not aggressively experimenting with AI."
It’s a hard truth. But it might be the only thing that gives us a chance to prepare before the job market changes forever.
"My guess is it's going to start being a much bigger issue going into the next year," says Roetzer. "I feel like we may have hit that tipping point where this really starts to become a concern for people."