Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei says that while an AI-powered future could deliver explosive economic growth, it could also push wealth concentration into levels that ultimately fracture society.
In his new essay, dubbed The Adolescence of Technology, Amodei says that in the age of AI, economic growth and innovation would be the least of society’s worries.
“But in a scenario where GDP growth is 10–20% a year, and AI is rapidly taking over the economy, yet single individuals hold appreciable fractions of the GDP, innovation is not the thing to worry about. The thing to worry about is a level of wealth concentration that will break society.”
The Anthropic CEO says that early signals of massive wealth concentration are already appearing in the US, pointing to Elon Musk and his mind-boggling net worth.
“The most famous example of extreme concentration of wealth in US history is the Gilded Age, and the wealthiest industrialist of the Gilded Age was John D. Rockefeller. Rockefeller’s wealth amounted to ~2% of the US GDP at the time. A similar fraction today would lead to a fortune of $600 billion, and the richest person in the world today (Elon Musk) already exceeds that, at roughly $700 billion. So we are already at historically unprecedented levels of wealth concentration, even before most of the economic impact of AI.”
In an AI-dominated economy, Amodei says that tech companies will print revenues to the tune of tens of trillions of dollars.
“I don’t think it is too much of a stretch to imagine AI companies, semiconductor companies, and perhaps downstream application companies generating ~$3 trillion in revenue per year, being valued at ~$30 trillion, and leading to personal fortunes well into the trillions.”
Amodei says that those at the top of the AI economic ladder must be willing to surrender their wealth and power, just as the titans of the past gave back to society.
“We should look to the history of our country here: even in the Gilded Age, industrialists such as Rockefeller and Carnegie felt a strong obligation to society at large, a feeling that society had contributed enormously to their success and they needed to give back. That spirit seems to be increasingly missing today, and I think it is a large part of the way out of this economic dilemma. Those who are at the forefront of AI’s economic boom should be willing to give away both their wealth and their power.”
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