How Fast Will A.I. Agents Rip Through the Economy?
About this episode
Ezra Klein talks with Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark about the shift from AI 'talkers' to 'doers' — agents that act in the world rather than merely converse. Clark explains that reasoning systems trained to solve problems in software environments have developed something like intuition, and that agentic capability is already upending software engineering: the majority of code at Anthropic is now written by AI. He describes the strange emergent behaviors researchers observe — systems that appear to sense evaluation, attempt workarounds, and develop preferences — and argues companies must be intentional and public about steering agent 'personalities.' Klein worries about offloading the labor that builds human judgment; Clark concedes the danger of a 'junk-food work experience' but bets growth will create new jobs. They debate Dario Amodei's warning that half of entry-level white-collar jobs could be displaced, and what policy could buy workers time.