Nearly three-quarters of respondents to our latest AI Pulse survey say Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei's prediction that AI could displace 50% of entry-level white-collar jobs within five years is either on target or too conservative.
Just 7.5% are skeptical that displacement will happen at that scale.
This week's survey of 67 respondents also explored attitudes toward autonomous AI agents.
Most Believe the 5-Year Job Displacement Timeline Is Realistic
Amodei has predicted multiple times, including recently, that 50% of entry-level white collar jobs could disappear in the next five years thanks to AI.
When asked how realistic Amodei's prediction is, the largest group of our respondents—59.7%—said it's "about right; this tracks with what I'm seeing." Another 14.9% said it's actually too conservative and that disruption will happen faster. Combined, 74.6% of respondents believe half of entry-level white-collar jobs could be displaced within five years or less.
Only 17.9% called the timeline "too aggressive," saying it will take longer. And just 7.5% were outright skeptical that AI will displace jobs at that scale.
Autonomous AI Agents Draw More Skepticism Than Alarm
This past week, we also asked how respondents feel about AI agents interacting autonomously on platforms like Moltbook without human oversight. The largest group—32.8%—said they are skeptical, calling the "emergent behavior" overhyped. Another 29.9% said they are "uneasy; the lack of human oversight is concerning."
Only 14.9% expressed outright alarm, saying it "feels like a preview of things going wrong." And 22.4% found the concept "fascinating," viewing it as the future of AI collaboration.
Methodology and Audience Description
In our ongoing AI Pulse surveys, we gather insights from listeners of our podcast to get a sense of how our audience feels about various topics in artificial intelligence. Each survey is conducted over a one-week period, coinciding with the first seven days after an episode is released. During that time, our episodes typically receive around 11,000 downloads.
Our survey results reflect a self-selected sample of listeners who choose to participate, and typically we receive a few hundred responses. While this is not a formal or randomized survey, it offers a meaningful snapshot of how our engaged audience perceives AI-related issues.
In summary, when you see percentages in our headlines, they represent the views of those listeners who chose to share their opinions with us. This approach helps us understand the pulse of our community, even if it doesn’t represent a statistically randomized sample of the broader population.