The emergence of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) is approaching rapidly, leaving politicians with less time to prepare. This was stated by Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei during a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

The entrepreneur warned that the rapid advancement of AI could outpace the ability of labor markets and social institutions to adapt to these changes.

Transformations will occur within "a few years, not decades," according to Amodei. He reaffirmed a previously stated forecast that AGI will emerge by 2026 or 2027.

"I don’t think it will be long. It’s hard for me to imagine it taking more time," Amodei emphasized.

The driving force behind the accelerated development of AI is self-learning, where models automate their own creation. Amodei noted that in his company, the traditional role of software engineers is already being performed by artificial intelligence.

"I have developers who don’t write code. They let the neural network do that, and then they edit it. Perhaps in six months or a year, LLMs will handle most, if not all, of the work," Amodei stated.

In his view, progress is limited only by chip supplies and training cycles.

Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis holds a more cautious perspective.

"Significant progress has been made in some areas. In mathematics or programming, it’s easy to envision how AI can be automated because their results are verifiable. However, in the natural sciences, it’s more complex. You can’t know if a chemical compound or a physics prediction is correct," the expert said.

Hassabis added that current LLMs still cannot generate original questions, theories, or hypotheses.

"This is the highest level of scientific creativity, and it’s unclear whether we will have such systems," he noted.

The head of DeepMind estimates that AGI will appear by 2030 with a 50% probability.

Consequences

Both executives reached a grim consensus regarding the economic implications. They believe that jobs for "white-collar" workers are at risk.

According to Amodei, up to half of entry-level professional positions could disappear within ten years.

Hassabis warned that even the most pessimistic economists might underestimate the speed of this transition.

"Five to ten years isn’t a long time," he stated.

Some analysts argue that changes will manifest not as direct job replacements but as a restructuring of professional activities.

"We need to stop asking whether AI will replace our jobs and start asking how it will degrade them," said Bob Hutchins, CEO of Human Voice Media.

The impending shift changes the role of humans from "creators" to "verifiers," the expert added.

"This deprives professionals of the ability to make their own decisions and breaks meaningful professional work into unskilled, low-paid tasks," he noted.

It’s worth recalling that in August 2024, British trade unions warned of the risk of millions of job cuts due to artificial intelligence.