This start-up wants to replace all human workers with AI
What's the story
Tamay Besiroglu, a leading US-based artificial intelligence (AI) researcher, has launched a start-up called Mechanize. The company's goal? To replace all human workers with AI agents. Besiroglu announced the controversial idea on social media platform X last week. He said Mechanize will work toward "the full automation of all work" and "the full automation of the economy."
Automation goal
Mechanize aims to automate all white-collar jobs
Besiroglu said the company's "immediate focus is indeed on white-collar work" rather than manual labor jobs that can be replaced by robots. Mechanize plans to provide the data, evaluations, and digital environments needed to automate workers across sectors. He even calculated his start-up's market size by aggregating all wages paid to humans. "The market potential here is absurdly large: workers in the US are paid around $18 trillion per year in aggregate," he wrote on X.
Backlash
Mechanize's mission has drawn criticism online
The announcement of Mechanize has already drawn a lot of backlash online. Critics say replacing humans at workplaces would come at a great cost to society. One user even expressed disappointment over the news, saying "I think it will be a huge loss for most humans." Besiroglu's non-profit AI research institute Epoch, which analyzes the economic impact of AI and produces benchmarks for AI performance, has also been under scrutiny due to its association with this controversial start-up.
Investor support
Mechanize is backed by several prominent figures
Despite the controversy, Mechanize has found support from several big names including Nat Friedman (ex-CEO of Github), Daniel Gross (notable tech investor), Patrick Collison (co-founder and CEO of Stripe), Dwarkesh Patel (popular podcaster), Jeff Dean, Sholto Douglas, and Marcus Abramovitch. Abramovitch confirmed his investment in the start-up. He said he invested because "the team is exceptional across many dimensions and have thought deeper on AI than anyone I know." This endorsement indicates confidence in Besiroglu's vision for full automation.