The leadership at Anthropic, a prominent AI startup that secured billions of dollars in funding earlier this month, is warning that AI is “likely” to supplant jobs.

At the Axios AI + DC Summit on Wednesday, Anthropic Cofounders Dario Amodei and Jack Clark, serving as CEO and Head of Policy, respectively, highlighted AI’s growing potential to displace work rapidly — a concern significant enough to merit a warning.

“As with most things, when an exponential is moving very quickly, you can’t be sure,” Amodei remarked at the event. “I think it is likely enough to happen that we felt there was a need to warn the world about it and to speak honestly.”

Amodei suggested government intervention might be required to aid those whose jobs are affected by AI, while Clark stressed that Anthropic anticipates a notable “scale of disruption” in society due to AI within the next five years.

“You need some kind of policy response,” Clark said.

^{Anthropic co-founder and CEO Dario Amodei. Photo by Chance Yeh/Getty Images for HubSpot}

Earlier this month, Anthropic raised $13 billion, reaching a $183 billion valuation. The AI startup recently released a report indicating AI’s “potential” to replace workers. Most businesses utilizing its chatbot, Claude, were employing it to automate tasks rather than assist people. Claude had 30 million active users monthly worldwide as of the year’s second quarter.

“Given clear automation patterns in business deployment, this may also bring disruption in labor markets,” the report stated.

Amodei has previously addressed AI’s potential to take over human work. In March, he predicted AI would assume the role of writing code for companies within the next year. In May, he anticipated that AI would eliminate half of all entry-level, white-collar jobs within the next five years, resulting in a rise in unemployment to 20%.

And he’s not alone in issuing warnings. Geoffrey Hinton, known as the Godfather of AI due to his pioneering work in creating the technology, said in June that AI is going to “replace everybody” in white-collar jobs. A person and an AI assistant will take over the work of ten people, he predicted.

Hinton suggested paralegals and call center representatives will be some of the first roles replaced. He added that it would take AI some time to become skilled at physical labor, so “a good bet would be to be a plumber.”