Mark Cuban says that AI will create, and not destroy, jobs.
Cuban made the remarks in response to an interview given by Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei to Axios which was published Wednesday. In the interview, Amodei said AI may wipe out 50% of all entry-level office jobs.
“Someone needs to remind the CEO that at one point there were more than 2m secretaries. There were also separate employees to do in office dictation. They were the original white collar displacements,” Cuban wrote in a post on Bluesky on Wednesday.
“New companies with new jobs will come from AI and increase TOTAL employment,” he continued.
Amodei told Axios that he expects unemployment to soar by 10% to 20% in the next one to five years. He added that the government and AI companies should stop “sugar-coating” the effect AI is going to have on entry-level jobs in sectors like finance, law, and consulting.
“Most of them are unaware that this is about to happen,” Amodei said. “It sounds crazy, and people just don’t believe it.”
This isn’t the first time Cuban has said that AI’s effect on white-collar work won’t be as serious as expected.
In December, Cuban told Business Insider’s Lloyd Lee that the effect AI can have on a company’s headcount will depend on “how well the company can implement AI.”
“Every company is different,” Cuban said.
Cuban said in an episode of the “YMH” podcast that aired in March that he didn’t think AI will be able to replace artists entirely.
“AI is not going to, you know, hit your bank account and produce a movie for you, produce a podcast or whatever,” he said.
Cuban told BI in a follow-up interview about the podcast that AI “is just one more creative tool” and cannot act as a “decision-maker.”
“I’ve seen companies that use analytics to determine what a studio or label should release, fail time after time. That’s the same as using AI to replace everyone. It may be a novelty. But it won’t work,” he said.
Cuban and Anthropic did not respond to requests for comment from BI.