AI helps, AI hurts

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The closer you are to AI’s orbit, the more you see its benefits — and potential threats. Such is the paradox found in a new Anthropic study of 81,000 Claude users. Those seeing the biggest productivity gains are also the most concerned about job displacement, especially in roles highly exposed to AI and among early-career workers.

AI tools such as Claude offer empowerment on a personal level, the study’s authors point out. “People are most likely to talk about benefits flowing to themselves rather than to employers or AI companies.”

High-wage workers, especially entrepreneurs and technologists, registered the greatest productivity gains from using AI. People with low-wage jobs and lower levels of education also reported large productivity gains. “Most respondents reported that Claude enhanced their capabilities in the form of broadening the scope of their work or speeding it up,” the Anthropic researchers said. "But users experiencing the largest speedups were also the most nervous about AI’s job impacts.”

The data, part of Anthropic’s Economic Index, took a deep dive into people’s thoughts and impressions of AI, using Claude for analysis, of course.

When it comes to a future propelled by AI, peoples’ concerns turn to economics. About 1 in 5 respondents worried about job displacement. Simultaneously, "they also feel more productive and empowered at work,” the researchers found. “In some cases, AI has enabled them to start businesses, or given them time for more important things. In others, AI feels stifling, or imposed on them by their employers.”

AI also is enabling the pursuit of side gigs. "One delivery driver, for example, was using Claude to start an e-commerce business, and a landscaper was building a music application,” the study reports. Tellingly, entrepreneurs were the group citing the greatest productivity gains, the study shows.

Not surprisingly, “people in more exposed occupations tended to express more concern about their jobs being automated away,” the researchers found. “For every 10-percentage-point increase in exposure, perceived job threat increased by 1.3 percentage points. People in the top 25% of exposure mentioned the worry three times as often as those in the bottom 25%.”

Career stage also makes a difference in perception, and "early-career respondents were much more likely to express concern about job displacement than senior workers.”

Overall, people reported meaningful productivity gains on average — a mean of 5.1 on a scale of 1 to 7. The caveat was that respondents were “active Claude users who were willing to take a survey. This could make them more likely to report productivity benefits than the average user.” The most common productivity enhancement is in scope, which was cited by 48% of users who cited productivity effects. Another 40% emphasized speed.

The two groups exhibiting the mildest productivity improvements were scientists and lawyers. Some lawyers worried about AI’s ability to follow precise instructions. For example: “I have given very specific rules about what is where, how to read a legal document, what I want it to do," said one survey respondent, "but it diverges every time.”