Mankind CEO Dario Amody has once again warned about the destructive potential of artificial intelligence in the workplace. Speaking about Amol Rajan and BBC Radical, he warned that AI could replace all entry-level office jobs in the next 1-5 years.
“Specifically, when you look at work like White at entry level, you think of people working in law firms like first-year associates. It's very repetitive, but all examples are different.
According to him, AI is no longer a tool for the future. It allows for repeated variable tasks to be performed, forming the backbone of many entry-level roles in law, finance, consulting, and management. Amodei emphasized that many business leaders personally view AI as a way to reduce costs, not as a way to strengthen their workforce. “To be honest, I think most of them want to use it to reduce costs and hire fewer people,” he said.
Amodei's concerns are supported by personal debates with executives who have already integrated AI into operations. Many of them are open about their intentions to reduce staffing. He argues that the technology is rapidly improving and that AI already shows proficiency in tasks being performed by first-year associates, junior analysts and other entry-level experts.
This warning is not new. In May, Amodei told Axios that AI could wipe out half of the entry-level office roles within five years, raising the unemployment rate to 10-20%. Beyond administrative work, he sees AI take over software development. “AI can write 90% of the software code within three to six months, and within a year, “essentially everything,””included,” he said, predicting that AI could be limited to high-level design parameters definitions while handling detailed execution.
However, opinions among technical leaders are divided. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang rejected Amodei's predictions, claiming that Ai would restructure the role rather than eliminate them. Similarly, Microsoft's Chief Product Officer Aparna Chennapragada highlights the continued importance of coding skills, saying that computer science is highly relevant to the AI era. However, some leaders, like Ford CEO Jim Farley, share Amodei's outlook, predicting that AI could replace “literally half” of US white-collar workers.
What's clear is that AI is moving faster than many companies, regulators and employees. The debate is no longer about whether AI will transform its work, but how it will do so. For Amodei, the countdown is already in progress. Automating entry-level positions is not a distant threat, but an accelerated reality, and its impacts could rebuild the workforce for years.
