Anthropic's CEO says we're in the 'centaur phase' of software engineering

• Dario Amodei compared AI and humans working together to a mythical creature — the horse-and-human centaur.
• "We're already in our centaur phase for software," Amodei said.
• Software execs argue AI boosts engineer productivity, instead of cutting jobs.

Dario Amodei has a novel analogy to describe how AI and humans are working together.

On an episode of the "Interesting Times with Ross Douthat" podcast published on Thursday, the Anthropic CEO compared human engineers and AI working together to the mythical horse-and-human combination known as the centaur.

He used chess as an example: 15 to 20 years ago, a human checking AI's output could beat an AI or a human playing alone. Now, AI can beat people without that layer of human supervision.

Amodei, who cofounded AI lab Anthropic in 2021, added that the same transition would happen in software engineering.

"We're already in our centaur phase for software," Amodei said. "During that centaur phase, if anything, the demand for software engineers may go up. But the period may be very brief."

He said he's concerned about the "big disruption" entry-level white-collar work would see. The CEO added that it may be unfair to compare this to the shift from farming to factory to knowledge work revolution because that happened over centuries or decades.

"This is happening over low single-digit numbers of years," he said.

Amodei is among the most prominent voices warning that AI could erase some white-collar work, especially in law, finance, and consulting. In a January essay, he predicted that AI could disrupt 50% of entry-level jobs in the next one to five years.

The leaders of other top AI labs, including Mustafa Suleyman and Demis Hassabis, have made similar comments about advanced AI automating service jobs within the next 18 months.

Execs at some software companies counter that AI would make engineers more productive and that companies would need more of them.

"The companies that are the smartest are going to hire more developers," GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke said on a July podcast. "I think the idea that AI without any coding skills lets you just build a billion-dollar business is mistaken."

Atlassian's CEO said that as AI advances, people will keep coming up with new ideas for the technology they want, and engineers will be needed to build it.

"Five years from now, we'll have more engineers working for our company than we do today," Mike Cannon-Brookes said in an October interview. "They will be more efficient, but technology creation is not output-bound."