"AI eats the children"

From Australia's MacroBusiness, October 5:

Anthropic is concerned.

Frontier AI giant Anthropic has declared that artificial intelligence poses an “industrial-scale threat’’ to Australia and could reduce “demand for human work’’.

As a parliamentary inquiry probes OpenAI’s government data hacks and the AI industry’s creative “cannibalisation”, Anthropic has called for taxpayer support to retain, retain or redeploy workers whose jobs are replaced by AI agents and chatbots.

“Anthropic does believe that AI can deliver incredible progress in scientific discovery and workplace productivity but that these gains could also come with a reduction in demand for human work,’’ the company states in its submission to the Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence, which will grill executives from Anthropic, Google, Microsoft and OpenAI at a hearing in Sydney on Tuesday.

Challenger Grey’s latest research finds that AI is now the number one reason for layoffs in the economy, at 21% of the total over the past year.

 

Stanford Labs data indicates this is not evenly distributed but focused, as you would expect, in entry-level positions.

1. We do not see widespread, economy-wide job displacement associated with AI.
2. However, young workers in AI-exposed occupations are increasingly falling behind their less-exposed peers. Employment among workers ages 22–25 in highly AI-exposed occupations now stands about 19% below where it would be if it had kept pace with employment among similarly aged workers in less-exposed occupations. Experienced workers show no comparable gap.¹
3. This divergence has widened steadily since we first documented it in August 2025: by this same measure, the shortfall was 15% at the July 2025 data vintage and is 19% as of June 2026.
4. The adjustment appears to operate primarily through reduced hiring of young workers rather than increased separations.
5. The declines are concentrated in occupations where AI usage tends to automate human tasks. In occupations where AI is used more to complement workers, employment is flat or rising, particularly among more experienced workers.
6. So far, adjustment is showing up primarily in employment rather than base pay. 

 

The US Census now corroborates those findings....

....MUCH MORE