Daniela Amodei, who co-founded Anthropic with her brother Dario, said that in the age of AI, uniquely human qualities will actually matter, if not more.
In an interview with ABC News that aired Saturday, she said the number of jobs that AI can do without human help is “vanishingly small.” At the same time, even the most cognitively challenging tasks that humans are good at can be enhanced by AI.
“I continue to believe that the combination of humans and AI actually creates more meaningful work, more rewarding work, more interesting work, and more productive work,” Amodei added. “And I think it’s going to open up a lot of access and opportunity for a lot of people.”
This does not mean that the future employment landscape will require a technical background. In fact, the release of Anthropic’s latest AI coding tools triggered a massive sell-off in tech stocks last week, as it is expected to significantly reduce the technical expertise needed to write and maintain code.
Ms. Amodei majored in literature at the University of California, Santa Cruz. After a short stint on Capitol Hill staff, she pivoted to technology, joining fintech company Stripe and then OpenAI. In 2020, she left her job at an AI startup and co-founded Anthropic. Daniela is the president of the company and runs the company with her brother, who is also the CEO.
“What makes us human is not going to become less important, it’s going to become much more important,” she told ABC News. “That means that as we look to hire at Anthropic today, we are looking for people who are good communicators, have good emotional intelligence and interpersonal skills, are kind, caring, curious, and want to help others.”
This echoes what JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon has said about the growing importance of “soft skills” such as having a high emotional quotient.
Although some jobs will still be lost to AI, young people should rely on critical thinking and communication skills such as how to write well and perform well in meetings. If we get these things right, “there will be a lot of jobs,” he said in December.
At the end of the day, Amodei said, people still enjoy interacting with other humans because they are complemented by very smart and capable AI.
“In fact, I think studying the humanities will be more important than ever,” she explained. “Many of these models are actually very good at STEM. But I think the idea that there are things that make us human, like understanding ourselves, understanding our history, understanding what makes us tick, is always really, really important. And I think the ability to have critical thinking skills and learn how to interact with other people is going to be more important, if not more important, in the future.”
Indeed, more Gen Zers are forgoing college, a necessary step in a successful career path, and are instead turning to trade school and working in practical fields such as manufacturing, construction, and maintenance.
But for those still in white-collar positions, other technology leaders are similarly emphasizing the importance of soft skills.
IBM CEO Ginny Rometty said: luck When generative AI is fully integrated into the workforce in 2023, there will be a focus on abilities such as collaboration, judgment, and critical thinking.
And Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in November that emotional intelligence and empathy are becoming increasingly important as AI takes over more analytical and technical tasks.
“IQ has a place, but it’s not the only thing the world needs,” he said on Axel Springer CEO Matthias Dopfner’s show. MD meets Podcast.
