OpenAI and Anthropic dig in against each other on AI jobs apocalypse

AI's most powerful CEOs are splitting into warring camps over whether their own technology will gut white-collar work or supercharge it — but the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle.Why it matters: The two leading AI labs are trading in hype and doom, making it nearly impossible for companies, policymakers, and the public to know what's coming.The big picture: A pair of public appearances this week highlighted how far apart Anthropic and OpenAI are.Anthropic co-founder Chris Olah, speaking Sunday at the Vatican's AI ethics conference, doubled down on rhetoric CEO Dario Amodei has used about the dangers of AI. There is a real possibility that AI will displace human labor at very large scale, Olah said.OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is sounding rosier about the tech. He said it's unlikely to cause a jobs apocalypse and that he was wrong about earlier projections that it would wipe out entire categories of jobs.I'm delighted to be wrong about this, I thought there would have been more impact on entry-level white-collar jobs being eliminated by now than ​has actually happened, Altman told Commonwealth Bank of Australia CEO Matt Comyn.Zoom in: A spate of tech company layoffs in recent weeks has given fresh fodder to the doomer camp.Meta let go of nearly 8,000 employees, after projecting at least 125 billion in AI capital expenditures this year.That came after Coinbase, Block, Pinterest, Shopify and others tied workforce restructurings to AI capabilities.AI costs a lot of money and layoffs can offset those costs, Sophia Velastegui, Microsoft's former chief AI officer and now CEO at Velastegui Ventures, told Axios.Yes, but: There's also recent evidence pointing in the other direction. While unemployment has ticked up since 2023, it has predominantly been in sectors with the least exposure to AI, according to Stanford researchers.Software engineering job openings on Indeed are up over 18 year over year, while all openings are down 4.3 over the same period. LinkedIn's chief economist recently said AI has led to around 1.3 million new job postings.Data: Indeed; Chart: Noah Bressner/AxiosReality check: Some technology giants are scaling back their AI usage after finding that the promise of huge productivity gains haven't materialized.Uber's COO said AI costs are getting harder to justify weeks after his chief technology officer blew through his 2026 IT budget on AI usage.Microsoft is winding down some of its Claude Code licenses, according to The Verge, a move Fortune tied to their enormous costs.The bottom line: No one really knows how the AI jobs story will play out. The most likely scenario: widespread displacement in some sectors, job growth in others, and an uneven transition that defies a clean narrative for either side.