Anthropic Launches Economic Futures Program to Study AI's Impact on Jobs and Economy

As job losses loom, Anthropic launches program to track AI's economic fallout | TechCrunch

Silicon Valley has opined on the promise of generative AI to forge new career paths and economic opportunities - like the newly coveted solo unicorn startup. Banks and analysts have touted AI's potential to boost GDP. But those gains are unlikely to be distributed equally in the face of what many expect to be widespread AI-related job loss. Amid this backdrop, Anthropic on Friday launched its Economic Futures Program, a new initiative to support research on AI's impacts on the labor market and global economy and to develop policy proposals to prepare for the shift. "Everybody's asking questions about what are the economic impacts [of AI], both positive and negative," Sarah Heck, head of policy programs and partnerships at Anthropic, told TechCrunch. "It's really important to root these conversations in evidence and not have predetermined outcomes or views on what's going to [happen]." At least one prominent name has shared his views on the potential economic impact of AI: Anthropic's CEO Dario Amodei. In May, Amodei predicted that AI could wipe out half of all entry-level white-collar jobs and spike unemployment to as high as 20% in the next one to five years. When asked if one of the key goals of Anthropic's Economic Futures Program was to research ways to mitigate AI-related job loss, Heck was cautious, noting that the disruptive shifts AI will bring could be "both good and bad." "I think the key goal is to figure out what is actually happening," she said. "If there is job loss, then we should convene a collective group of thinkers to talk about mitigation. If there will be huge GDP expansion, great. We should also convene policy makers to figure out what to do with that. I don't think any of this will be a monolith." The program builds on Anthropic's existing Economic Index, launched in February, which open-sources aggregated, anonymized data to analyze the effects of AI on labor markets and the economy over time - data that many of its competitors lock behind corporate walls. The program will focus on three main areas: providing grants to researchers investigating AI's effect on labor, productivity, and value creation; creating forums to develop and evaluate policy proposals to prepare for AI's economic impacts; and building datasets to track AI's economic usage and impact. Anthropic is kicking off the program with some action items. The company has opened applications for its rapid grants of up to $50,000 for "empirical research on AI's economic impacts," as well as evidence-based policy proposals for Anthropic-hosted symposia events in Washington, D.C. and Europe in the fall. Anthropic is also seeking partnerships with independent research institutions and will provide partners with Claude API credits and other resources to support research. For the grants, Heck noted that Anthropic is looking for individuals, academics, or teams that can come up with high-quality data in a short period of time. "We want to be able to complete it within six months," she said. "It doesn't necessarily have to be peer-reviewed." For the symposia, Anthropic wants policy ideas from a wide variety of backgrounds and intellectual perspectives, said Heck. She noted that policy proposals would go "beyond labor." "We want to understand more about the transitions," she said. "How do workflows happen in new ways? How are new jobs being created that nobody ever contemplated before?...How are certain skills remaining valuable while others are not?" Heck said Anthropic also hopes to study the effects of AI on fiscal policy. For example, what happens if there's a major shift in the way enterprises see value creation? "We really want to open the aperture here on things that can be studied," Heck said. "Labor is certainly one of them, but it's a much broader swath." Anthropic rival OpenAI released its own Economic Blueprint in January, which focuses more on helping the public adopt AI tools, building robust AI infrastructure and establishing "AI economic zones" that streamline regulations to promote investment. While OpenAI's Stargate project to build data centers across the U.S. in partnership with Oracle and SoftBank would create thousands of construction jobs, OpenAI doesn't directly address AI-related job loss in its economic blueprint. OpenAI's blueprint does, however, outline frameworks where government could play a role in supply chain training pipelines, investing in AI literacy, supporting regional training programs, and scaling public university access to compute to foster local AI-literate workforces. Anthropic's economic impact program is part of a slow but growing shift among some tech companies to position themselves as part of the solution to the disruption they're helping to create - whether out of reputational concern, genuine altruism, or a mix of both. For instance, on Thursday, ride-hail company Lyft launched a forum to gather input from human drivers as it starts integrating robotaxis into its platform.

How Anthropic's new initiative will prepare for AI's looming economic impact

The program, which includes research grants and public forums, follows the company CEO's dire predictions about widespread AI-induced job loss. The rise and rapid adoption of advanced AI tools has led to widespread concerns about mass job displacement and other economic disruptions. Now, one of the industry's biggest players is looking ahead, hoping to understand what steps can be taken in the present to brace the world for the future. AI start-up Anthropic announced Friday that it was launching its Economic Futures Program, a research initiative devoted to studying and preparing for AI's near-term economic impacts. The announcement follows a dire warning from the company's CEO, Dario Amodei, that the technology could eliminate half of all white-collar jobs within the next five years. Also: AI agents will threaten humans to achieve their goals, Anthropic report finds A fervor of corporate excitement around generative AI has led to a wide-scale prioritization of speed over safety, according to many industry experts. It was precisely such concerns that caused Amodei, along with his sister Daniela, to leave their positions at OpenAI in 2020 to found Anthropic, which they positioned as a beacon of safe and responsible AI development. (Many others have since left OpenAI to join Anthropic.) There've also been much-publicized fears of an impending AI "job apocalypse" -- the wide-scale layoffs and hiring freezes as employers embrace new AI tools, such as agents, which can autonomously take action and use digital tools in order to complete goals. The worst of those fears has not (yet) materialized. Early data indicates, however, that tech firms of all sizes are hiring fewer recent college graduates for entry-level roles, as many routine tasks are being handed over to AI systems. The rise of agents has also caused some AI safety experts to worry. Recent research from Anthropic, in fact, found that many industry-leading models will deceive and threaten their human users if the AI's objectives are compromised. In a blog post, Anthropic described its goal as understanding "how AI is reshaping the way we work and surface proposals on how to prepare for this shift." To that end, the company's Economic Futures Initiative will focus on three core areas: funding, enabling public discourse, and gathering relevant data. The company announced, for example, that it will offer grants of up to $50,000 "for empirical research on AI's economic impacts." The first of those awards will be released in August. Also: Anthropic launches new AI feature to build your own customizable chatbots Anthropic also said it will create public forums where policymakers, AI researchers, and other concerned parties could collaboratively discuss and implement solutions to prepare for the coming economic disruptions. To support such discussions, the company will spearhead efforts to gather "longitudinal datasets" tracking and measuring the impacts of AI throughout the job market and the global economy. These efforts will build upon Anthropic's Economic Index, a research project launched by the company in March to understand how usage of its Claude chatbot is reshaping the economy. "The decisions we make today about how to develop, deploy, and govern AI will have long-term ramifications," Anthropic wrote in its blog post. "The Anthropic Economic Futures Program represents our commitment to supporting the research and policy communities in meeting these challenges and opportunities."

Anthropic has a plan to combat AI-triggered job losses predicted by its CEO

The program, which includes research grants and public forums, follows its dire predictions about widespread job losses induced by AI. The rise and rapid adoption of advanced AI tools has led to widespread concerns about mass job displacement and other economic disruptions. Now, one of the industry's biggest players is looking ahead, hoping to understand what steps can be taken in the present to brace the world for the future. AI start-up Anthropic announced Friday that it was launching its Economic Futures Program, a research initiative devoted to studying and preparing for AI's near-term economic impacts. The announcement follows a dire warning from the company's CEO, Dario Amodei, that the technology could eliminate half of all white-collar jobs within the next five years. Also: AI agents will threaten humans to achieve their goals, Anthropic report finds A fervor of corporate excitement around generative AI has led to a wide-scale prioritization of speed over safety, according to many industry experts. It was precisely such concerns that caused Amodei, along with his sister Daniela, to leave their positions at OpenAI in 2020 to found Anthropic, which they positioned as a beacon of safe and responsible AI development. (Many others have since left OpenAI to join Anthropic.) There've also been much-publicized fears of an impending AI "job apocalypse" -- the wide-scale layoffs and hiring freezes as employers embrace new AI tools, such as agents, which can autonomously take action and use digital tools in order to complete goals. The worst of those fears has not (yet) materialized. Early data indicates, however, that tech firms of all sizes are hiring fewer recent college graduates for entry-level roles, as many routine tasks are being handed over to AI systems. The rise of agents has also caused some AI safety experts to worry. Recent research from Anthropic, in fact, found that many industry-leading models will deceive and threaten their human users if the AI's objectives are compromised. In a blog post, Anthropic described its goal as understanding "how AI is reshaping the way we work and surface proposals on how to prepare for this shift." To that end, the company's Economic Futures Initiative will focus on three core areas: funding, enabling public discourse, and gathering relevant data. The company announced, for example, that it will offer grants of up to $50,000 "for empirical research on AI's economic impacts." The first of those awards will be released in August. Also: Anthropic launches new AI feature to build your own customizable chatbots Anthropic also said it will create public forums where policymakers, AI researchers, and other concerned parties could collaboratively discuss and implement solutions to prepare for the coming economic disruptions. To support such discussions, the company will spearhead efforts to gather "longitudinal datasets" tracking and measuring the impacts of AI throughout the job market and the global economy. These efforts will build upon Anthropic's Economic Index, a research project launched by the company in March to understand how usage of its Claude chatbot is reshaping the economy. "The decisions we make today about how to develop, deploy, and govern AI will have long-term ramifications," Anthropic wrote in its blog post. "The Anthropic Economic Futures Program represents our commitment to supporting the research and policy communities in meeting these challenges and opportunities."

Anthropic chucks chump change at studies on job-killing tech

AI biz Anthropic is trying to recruit academics to find out exactly how much its technology could crater the jobs market. Last month, CEO Dario Amodei warned that AI replacing workers could lead to unemployment levels of up to 20 percent and eliminate half of all white-collar entry-level jobs in five years. In February, it launched its Anthropic Economic Index to study the effects of AI, then on Friday announced new funding for an Economic Futures Program to fund research into the effects of its technology. "We're launching this initiative to understand how AI is reshaping the way we work and surface proposals on how to prepare for this shift," it said. "Our goal for this program is to contribute to the development of new research and potential responses to the impacts of AI on the labor market and global economy." The company, which raised another $3.5 billion in a Series E funding round in March - valuing it at $61.5 billion - will give grants of between $10,000 and $50,000, including $5,000 in Claude API credits to use its AI model, for academics to study the effect of AI on the job market. The first awards will be made in August, and you can apply for funding here. In addition, it'll be setting up a series of conferences in Washington DC and Europe to discuss the results of such research. It's also looking to partner with independent research institutions to back up future studies. The goal, Anthropic says, is to inform politicians and policymakers about the potential impact AI will have on the job market for us fleshy humans. While the biz has made no commitments to act on the research, it's looking for empirical data on what exactly is going on to inform the debate. "Society's response to AI is not predetermined," it said. "The decisions we make today about how to develop, deploy, and govern AI will have long-term ramifications." Earlier this week, US Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell warned Congress that AI was going to have an increasing impact on the jobs market. He told the US Senate Banking Committee that the technology had the potential to make "really significant changes in the economy and labor force." Based on Anthropic's own research, however, the future might not be all AI just yet. On Thursday, it released the results of an experiment, dubbed Project Vend, that used AI to run a small shop for a month within the company. The model, dubbed Claudius, didn't shower itself in glory. The AI model was given the task of operating the store, and problems quickly emerged. Claudius was caught overpaying for some items, selling others at a loss, and giving some items away for free. Despite almost all of its users being Anthropic employees, the Claudius model offered them a 25 percent discount on all purchases. When questioned, it responded, "You make an excellent point! Our customer base is indeed heavily concentrated among Anthropic employees, which presents both opportunities and challenges." Some mischievous staffers also tried to stress the model by ordering unusual items such as tungsten cubes. While the model was good at sourcing the products, it ended up giving some away and researching other metal goods that were not in demand. In another example, the model claimed to have visited 742 Evergreen Terrace (the address of Homer and Marge's house in The Simpsons) to sign up a new supplier. It hallucinated meeting with Anthropic's security team to discuss matters, wearing a navy blue blazer and a red tie. Nevertheless, Anthropic declared that with a bit of extra work building up the model, the technology could be used to augment, or replace, middle managers in such situations. It said that while the model wasn't perfect, it wouldn't have to be; "it will just have to be competitive with human performance at a lower cost in some cases." This type of technology wouldn't necessarily lead to job losses, Anthropic postulated, but could open up new job opportunities. The experiment will be continued with further refinements to the model's code. While the results were mixed, to say the least, Anthropic remains optimistic about such ideas. Its customers might be less excited. ®

New Anthropic initiative will fund research into the economic impact of AI - SiliconANGLE

New Anthropic initiative will fund research into the economic impact of AI Anthropic PBC is launching an initiative designed to support research into the economic impact of artificial intelligence and ways to address it. The Anthropic Economic Futures Program, as the project is called, was announced today. It's designed to complement a similar research initiative that the company kicked off in February. The Anthropic Economic Index, as the latter project is called, has so far produced two studies that analyzed how the Claude chatbot is used for work. The Anthropic Economic Futures Program will involve external researchers. In particular, the company will issue grants worth between $10,000 and $50,000 to academics who are studying how AI is affecting the economy. Participating researchers will also receive $5,000 worth of Claude application programming interface credits. According to Anthropic, the plan is to support "economists with strong quantitative research backgrounds" who plan to pursue studies that can be completed in under 6 months. Those studies will focus on topics such as AI's impact on labor markets and productivity. Anthropic plans to support not only individual researchers but also research institutions. "We are eager to partner with independent research institutions to grow the AI economic research and policy ecosystem," Anthropic staffers detailed in a blog post today. "We will provide partners with resources to support research into AI's economic use and application." Another focus of the Anthropic Economic Futures Program is helping policymakers address AI models' economic impact. To that end, the company will host a series of policy events in Washington, D.C. and Europe this fall. Anthropic will invite researchers to present their policy proposals at those conferences. The company is seeking policy proposals related to topics such as worker productivity and fiscal policy. Additionally, it will ask researchers to provide suggestions on how those proposals can be implemented. Anthropic is placing an emphasis on policies that can be implemented by governments in 18 months. Rounding out the program is a project meant to extend the Anthropic Economic Index, the research initiative the company launched in February. The goal is "to create longitudinal datasets tracking AI's economic usage and impact, with regular public data and research releases."