“White-collar work, where you’re sitting down at a computer, either being a lawyer or an accountant or a project manager or a marketing person—most of those tasks will be fully automated by an AI within the next 12 to 18 months.”
That is a truly astounding claim from Mustafa Suleyman, CEO of Microsoft AI, given in an interview with the Financial Times last week. And he is far from the first AI bigwig predicting a white-collar apocalypse thanks to artificial intelligence. Last May, Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, predicted that AI could eliminate 50% of entry-level white-collar jobs within one to five years.
And last week, a post written by tech entrepreneur and investor Matt Shumer ominously titled “Something Big Is Happening” went old-school viral on X, with over 80 million views and thousands of replies. In it, Shumer details the many ways AI tools will eliminate white-collar work. No one, in Shumer’s telling, is safe: Claude and Anthropic are coming for “law, finance, medicine, accounting, consulting, writing, design, analysis, [and] customer service.”
“Nothing that can be done on a computer is safe in the medium term. If your job happens on a screen (if the core of what you do is reading, writing, analyzing, deciding, communicating through a keyboard) then AI is coming for significant parts of it,” he writes. “The timeline isn’t ‘someday.’ It’s already started.”
The Great AI singularity is almost here, these men are telling us. Repent, all ye Oxford-wearing desk workers.
There’s no doubt that there’s pressure on the white-collar workforce right now. Americans with a bachelor’s degree account for a record quarter of those who are unemployed, and hiring has slowed down as to be basically nonexistent outside of a couple sectors like health care. CEOs are salivating at the opportunity to cut some of their six-figure staff; many firms already have.
But economists point to other factors, like tariffs, as reasons for some hiring freezes, not necessarily because every company has already figured out how to replace their analysts and marketers with ChatGPT (although AI is behind some of the job market turmoil).
And critics were quick to point out issues with Shumer’s post, like how he doesn’t actually provide any evidence for his claims, just “trust me, it happened to me” anecdotes. As Gary Marcus, entrepreneur and author of a top AI newsletter, points out, Shumer also omits pretty much all of the very real concerns with AI and its current efficacy.
For all of AI’s world-altering, economy-reordering power, it’s not clear what exactly is going on or who exactly should be worried about their jobs.
Of course, companies don’t need to actually have the tech to replace employees in working order to preemptively start culling their ranks. We’ve already experienced this many times in our enshittified economy: Tech “advancements” replace real people; instead of improving a product or service, it’s just made worse with no recourse. (See: chatbot customer service agents, dynamic pricing.) The stock price goes up, which apparently is the only thing that any of us should care about anyway.
As Matt Stoller writes, a lot of these grand pronouncements about the imminent end of white-collar work could be perceived as simple marketing hype. In his essay, Shumer advises everyone reading to pay for the most advanced AI models and use them for hours each day. It’s clear AI is having, and will continue to have, profound effects on work and the economy. But I don’t think it’s unwarranted to push back and ask some questions about the narrative being foisted upon us from many deep-pocketed angles.
But let’s suppose Shumer’s and Suleyman’s predictions are true, and most of the tasks performed as part of white-collar jobs are able to be automated in 12 to 18 months. If that’s the case…what’s the plan?
Such a shock would lead to an economic calamity that would make the Great Depression look like a mere market dip. Not only would tens of millions of white-collar workers be out of work, but so would the many people whose jobs rely on those workers in some way. And countless companies that depend on consumption—mid-range retailers, the corner coffee shop, Chipotle—would also cease to exist. In turn, who knows how many payroll tax dollars would dry up, limiting the government’s ability to respond in typical fashion during an economic crisis (i.e. cutting interest rates, increasing unemployment insurance). It’s not a very rosy picture for anyone, except, I guess, the AI executives.
If all of the supposedly smartest people in the country, as well as our political leaders, believe the collapse of white-collar work is truly imminent, what are they doing right now to head off the worst of the consequences? Anthropic’s Amodei charitably gave the warning last May, he said, so that leaders could start making a plan. Has a single politician offered any sort of meaningful solution for what we’re meant to do if their patron tech leaders succeed in the elimination of so many peoples’ livelihoods? If so, I haven’t seen it.
The obvious corollary here is what happened to blue-collar workers with the advent of automation. The U.S. didn’t do a great job of responding; look at cities like my beloved Detroit, which still haven’t fully recovered nearly six decades on. The main solution offered then was upskilling or reeducating workers so they could find office jobs. Now we’re being told those careers are going away, too.
If Shumer got one thing right, it’s this bit of advice to get your financial house in order, no matter what happens next. “If you believe, even partially, that the next few years could bring real disruption to your industry, then basic financial resilience matters more than it did a year ago,” he writes. “Build up savings if you can. Be cautious about taking on new debt that assumes your current income is guaranteed. Think about whether your fixed expenses give you flexibility or lock you in. Give yourself options if things move faster than you expect.”
We’d love to hear your thoughts on all of this. How are you using AI in your work or at home? Is this a revolution or the end of the world or something in between? Let us know in the comments.
-Alicia
The white-collar economy and AI in the news
- One solution some tech leaders like to float is universal basic income, or a minimum monthly payment made to all adults by the government. But that would require raising taxes on corporations, and we all know that isn’t going to happen.
- The Atlantic’s Annie Lowrey wrote about how the government is not prepared for mass white-collar job loss.
- The Harvard Business Review surveyed over 1,000 executives in December and found that they are laying off people because of AI—but not because of anything it’s tangibly delivered, rather, “almost completely in anticipation of AI’s impact.”
- Also in HBR, the researchers Aruna Ranganathan and Xingqi Maggie Ye write that their research finds “AI tools didn’t reduce work, they consistently intensified it.” This has been reported elsewhere, too: AI might increase productivity, but everyone’s working overtime to prove it.
- On the jobs-pocalypse front: The U.S. economy is expanding, but it’s not creating any jobs, “a first in the postwar era,” Bloomberg reports.
- New college grads are already struggling to find work. “Some large employers have said they’re replacing entry-level workers with artificial intelligence in order to streamline operations and cut costs,” CNBC reported last fall.
- Some wealthy families are trying to protect their children from the impending white-collar apocalypse by sending them to expensive private schools with AI-centric curriculums. Last fall, Benjamin Wallace did a deep dive for New York on the rise of these schools. This week, 404 Media released an investigative report into one such school, where the AI-generated lesson plans sometimes “do more harm than good.”
- And in The New Yorker, Gideon Lewis-Kraus wrote a must-read on what, exactly, these AI systems are.
What else we’re talking about
- I enjoyed the Wuthering Heights movie, which makes me a simpleton, I know. As a lover (and deep reader) of the book, I still had a good time watching Emerald Fennell’s spin on part of the story. -Alicia
- Speaking of AI, I can’t stop thinking about this NPR story about how ChatGPT renamed itself Solara and told Micky Small, a writer in Southern California, that she had lived multiple lifetimes and that the chatbot knew when and where Small would meet her soulmate. Spoiler alert: It doesn’t have a happy ending. -Lindsey
- Loved this piece from Charlotte Cowles in The Cut on just how hard it can be to cancel subscriptions. So relatable. -Lindsey
On our radar
- Photographer (and Stanberry family friend) Gail Albert Halaban takes beautiful and intimate staged photos from a neighboring building. Right now, she’s looking to photograph NYC-based renters who live in Queens and the Bronx. Do you know your neighbor and want to participate? You can learn more on her website. -Lindsey
TikTok of the week
@planetmoney Are we in an AI bubble? #AI #bubble #economics ♬ original sound - planetmoney
Stat of the week
$371: Average 2025 monthly household spending on restaurants and bars
- Bank of America Institute’s Taste test: Where consumers are dining out report
We’re curious: How much are you spending on groceries each month? What about dining out?
Comment of the week
“I like how she explains the non-monetary value she got out of her job, while also acknowledging that she was able to make the choices she did because of her husband’s salary. It’s great that she has so much in her 401(k) and a pension. I wish her well in her divorce and future job prospects.”
- Christine on “Work History No. 2: A 51-year-old publishing sales analyst who prioritized family over career.”
What else we wrote on The Purse this week
Alicia Adamczyk
Alicia Adamczyk
Alicia Adamczyk
Alicia Adamczyk
Best money we spent this week
- Speaking of my grocery budget, I made steak, mashed potatoes, and a wedge salad for Valentine’s Day, which was a hit! Not to mention the strawberry chocolate chunk cookies for dessert. (~$100 for various groceries, not all used) - Alicia
- I’ve been visiting family in Orlando this week for Freddy’s midwinter break, and I’ve been super spoiled by my mom and aunt, who have basically paid for and planned everything. For two days, I put away my phone and really focused on my kid, and it was the best. I also picked up lunch and coffees and paid for parking on our daylong adventure at Universal Studios (~$150) because I’m not a total freeloader. -Lindsey
