Human workers remain more cost-effective than AI agents, industry leaders reveal
Venture capitalist Jason Calacanis reveals his AI agent expenses total approximately $110,000 per year, surpassing typical American worker salaries, while operating at minimal capacity.
Two wealthy technology investors are suggesting that the substantial expenses associated with implementing and operating artificial intelligence agents in business settings could actually stop them from displacing human workers who can perform identical tasks for less money.
During Saturday's All-In podcast, venture capitalist Jason Calacanis disclosed that he's been spending $300 daily for an Anthropic Claude AI agent to assist with managing his business operations, even though the automated system is functioning at merely 10% to 20% of its maximum capability.
"When do tokens outpace the salary of the employee?" Calacanis questioned, referring to the usage allowance, called tokens, that users must purchase to use most AI models.
Chamath Palihapitiya, who serves as CEO of Social Capital, revealed he was experiencing identical challenges and noted that the expense of these models necessitates that they "need to be at least two times as productive as another employee." He further mentioned he might have to establish a cap on the amount of AI his company can utilize.
On Thursday, technology investor Mark Cuban stated that the elevated expense of integrating AI into the workforce that was brought up by Calacanis and Palihapitiya represented the most intelligent rebuttal he'd encountered against AI overtaking employment positions.
Cuban pointed out that when factoring in the expense of tokens and upkeep, it might require twice as much money for eight Claude AI agents "to do what an employee does per day" for $1,200.
He raised questions about whether the AI bots were more than twice as productive as a human, or if there were "qualitative issues like morale, morality […] that can't be quantified, that need to go into the decision."
The possibility of AI displacing significant portions of the labor force has generated apprehension in recent years, as certain corporations have executed workforce reductions, citing their adoption of AI rendering particular positions unnecessary.
A research paper from Microsoft in July found that knowledge-based occupations, along with customer service and sales roles, were most at risk of being replaced by AI.
White House AI and crypto czar David Sacks is one of many who claim such fears are overhyped, saying in August that AI still needs to be prompted and verified to "drive business value."
Conversely, entities such as business consulting firm McKinsey & Co, have emphasized that the objective of these AI agents is to automate tasks end-to-end, operating without constant human input.
Stablecoins could be agentic AI's native currency
The adoption of AI agents has experienced increasing traction among cryptocurrency enthusiasts, and Jeremy Allaire, CEO of stablecoin provider Circle, forecasted last month that billions of AI agents will be conducting transactions using stablecoins for routine payments on behalf of users within five years.
In January, Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao stated that crypto would end up being the native currency for AI agents due to blockchain being the "most native technology interface for AI agents."
AI agents are already operating on several blockchains, such as Ethereum Layer 2 Base, where AIXBT, via the Virtuals Protocol, makes micropayments and facilitates trades on behalf of users, while ASI Alliance on Fetch.ai can manage assets and coordinate other economic tasks for users.
On Wednesday, OpenAI launched a new benchmark evaluating how well different AI models detect, patch, and even exploit security vulnerabilities found in smart contracts.
OpenAI said the research was useful as it is becoming more important to evaluate their performance in "economically meaningful environments."
"Smart contracts secure billions of dollars in assets, and AI agents are likely to be transformative for both attackers and defenders," it said.