AI Job Disruption Hits Harder—and Sooner—Than Experts Predicted
White-collar roles are collapsing faster than a meme coin in a bear market. Automation isn't coming—it's already rewriting your job description.
The great displacement: By 2025, generative AI tools will handle 40% of routine tasks currently performed by humans, according to new Goldman Sachs data. No industry is immune—not even finance (though bankers will still find ways to charge 2-and-20 for algorithmic 'alpha').
Adapt or perish: Upskilling programs can't keep pace with AI's exponential curve. The workforce faces its iPhone moment—and this time, the disruptor doesn't need sleep.
We’re nowhere near ready
Artificial general intelligence will extend far beyond automating routine tasks, with the ability to reason, adapt, and outperform humans across nearly every domain.
“Once AI becomes even slightly smarter than humans, we’ll see massive unemployment,” Goertzel told Decrypt. “It may start with junior white-collar jobs, but I think it will quickly extend to plumbers, electricians, janitors—everyone.”
Goertzel notes that AI has outperformed doctors in diagnostic accuracy for years, but industries like healthcare have resisted change due to institutional power and licensing requirements.
“Entry-level jobs have no one defending them,” he said. “Older people in powerful positions can protect their roles—and they’re the ones controlling how AI is rolled out. So, of course, they’re not going to replace themselves with AI.”
According to Goertzel, AI hasn’t disrupted blue-collar jobs as aggressively as white-collar jobs because physical hardware has yet to catch up. Because AI in software has far outpaced robotics, this disparity helps explain why white-collar jobs have borne the brunt of AI-driven layoffs, while blue-collar roles remain relatively untouched, for now.
Half of entry-level white-collar jobs could disappear
In a recent interview, Anthropic CEO Amodei warned that the job disruption from AI isn’t decades away—it’s already happening and will accelerate fast.
He estimates that up to 50% of entry-level white-collar roles could disappear within one to five years. These roles include early-career positions in law, finance, consulting, marketing, and technology—jobs that once offered stable on-ramps into professional careers.
As AI tools increasingly handle analysis, writing, planning, and decision-making, many of these human positions are being rendered obsolete. In a separate interview with CNN, Amodei reiterated his claim, warning that the shift would happen sooner than humanity can prepare for.
“What is striking to me about this AI boom is that it’s bigger, it’s broader, and it’s moving faster than anything has before,” Amodei said. “Compared to previous technology changes, I’m a little bit more worried about the labor impact, simply because it’s happening so fast that, yes, people will adapt, but they may not adapt fast enough.”
White-collar jobs already under threat
If you work behind a screen, then you’re already in the AI blast radius.
“The jobs most exposed are those requiring higher education, paying more, and involving cognitive tasks,” Tobias Sytsma, economist with the Rand Corporation, told Decrypt. “Historically, this type of AI exposure has been correlated with employment reductions.”
According to an April 2025 report by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, computer engineering graduates face double the unemployment rate of art history majors at 3% versus 7.5%, respectively.
Here are just a few of the jobs that economists say are the most immediately exposed to AI:
“Our research shows it’s mainly white-collar jobs—those requiring higher education, paying more, and involving cognitive tasks—that are most exposed,” Sytsma said.
However, healthcare professionals are relatively protected due to regulations. “Healthcare appears to be one where, for now, those barriers are insulating some workers. Still, exposure to these tools is increasing. What happens next remains unclear.”
“We could automate most jobs without reaching full human-level AGI, because most work is repetitive and based on prior examples—and AI handles that well,” Goertzel said. “Jobs requiring big, imaginative leaps are harder to replace, but most economic activity doesn’t rely on that.”
Goertzel suggested that superintelligence could even automate and replace political leaders. “Even the presidency could be automated,” he said, “but political norms make that off-limits—for now.”
Whether AI leads us to a post-work utopia or a deeply unequal dystopia, one thing is clear: If you still think AI is coming for blue-collar jobs first, then you’re already behind the curve. It’s coming for the desk next to you. And it’s not waiting.
Edited by Andrew Hayward
