Anthropic has published a model of how artificial intelligence (AI) could reshape the US economy by 2030. Interestingly, its fastest growth case is the one that cuts knowledge worker wages by more than 10%.
The company’s economics team released the tool alongside a technical report, Economic Scenarios for Transformative AI, and invited readers to plug in their own forecasts.
Three Futures With Very Different Winners
The model runs three cases, coming only hours after researcher Jacob Coxon said he had resigned from Anthropic and accused the industry of racing toward self-improving superintelligence.
That same capability triggers the model’s worst case:
- Modest case
AI matches the internet in scale and lifts gross domestic product (GDP) to $34.1 trillion, a 1.6% gain.
- Substantial case
Assumes AI handles half of all knowledge work by 2030. GDP reaches $36.3 trillion, roughly twice the normal growth rate, while unemployment settles near 5%. Knowledge worker wages stay flat.
- Extreme case
Requires AI that improves its own capabilities without human help. Annual growth hits 15%, GDP reaches $44.4 trillion, and unemployment spikes to historic levels. Knowledge worker pay falls by more than 10%.
Labor’s share of national income tells the same story. It slips slightly in the modest case, drops to 56.1% in the substantial one, and falls to 45.2% in the extreme.
“In the extreme scenario, the gains from a rapidly expanding economy are unevenly distributed,” read an excerpt in the report.
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Americans Are Betting on the Middle
Anthropic surveyed 10,980 people in August. The typical answer implied GDP about 10% higher by 2030, close to the substantial case. Roughly one in 10 expected the extreme.
That caution echoes earlier work. Anthropic’s June polling found Americans name job loss as their biggest AI worry, while Goldman Sachs traced the sharpest hiring damage to entry-level tech roles.
Anthropic frames the outcome as a choice rather than a forecast.
The model makes the trade explicit, since the scenario that creates the most wealth also hands the smallest slice of it to workers. The harder question is who gets to choose.
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