Anthropic CEO: AI Risks High GDP, Unemployment & Inequality

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei warns that AI could lead to both very high GDP growth and very high unemployment and inequality. This is a combination he says the world has almost never seen before. He explains that a technology this disruptive could mean five or ten percent GDP growth, alongside ten percent unemployment. Amodei is both excited and worried by this prospect. To illustrate, he notes that some engineers at Anthropic now let their AI model, Claude Opus 4.5, write most of their code, with them only editing. He also mentions that a new product, Claude Cowork, was built almost entirely by Claude Opus in just a week and a half. While engineers still have tasks, Amodei believes this won't last forever as models become more capable. He sees software potentially becoming very cheap, perhaps even free. However, he cautions that entire jobs and careers built over decades may disappear. Amodei feels there is little awareness of the magnitude of these changes to come. This matters because it suggests a significant shift in the future of work and the economy.