Stop learning programming, Anthropic CEO bluntly stated: coding jobs are disappearing quickly, and humans should learn to play the piano

*Author: [ASI Revelation](https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/mPuAtT9zgS8Eh0ACFbaigw), New Intelligence*

If anyone in today's world can foresee the direction of humanity over the next decade, Dario Amodei is definitely one of them.

He recently participated in a very in-depth interview. In this conversation, he candidly shared his predictions for the future------

"The AI tsunami is coming towards us, just around the corner. But society as a whole pretends that it is just a mirage."

Which industries will be completely disrupted in the next decade?

What should a 25-year-old learn today?

Is programming really at a dead end? How can ordinary people keep their jobs in this major reshuffle?


### "Pure coding" jobs are about to disappear first

During the interview, the host asked a question that everyone is extremely anxious about:

If I am 25 today and want to achieve financial success in the next decade, what should I learn? Is programming still useful? Which industries still have dividends?

Dario's answer was harsh.

He bluntly stated: **"I believe that coding will disappear first, or rather, it will be completely replaced by AI models."**

****

In the past twenty years, "coding" has been almost the fastest shortcut for ordinary people to cross social classes.

Countless young people have flocked to computer science majors just to secure a high-paying "coder" job at a large company.

But Dario pointed out mercilessly that the era of pure coding is coming to an end! Within Anthropic, Claude Code has been evolving exponentially.

**However, please note that Dario has not sentenced the software industry to death.**

He made an extremely critical distinction: **Coding ≠ Software Engineering.**


Writing specific lines of code will be handled by AI, but "software engineering"—that is, thinking about how to design a system, how to meet real user needs, and how to manage a team composed of multiple AI agents—will exist for a longer time.

"This is an extremely powerful 'comparative advantage,'" Dario explained.

Dario provided a highly disruptive mathematical formula: 5% + 95% = 20 times productivity.

Humanity's comparative advantage has not disappeared; it has simply undergone a drastic shift. In future workflows, AI will take on 95% of the execution work. Humans only need to hold on to that core 5%.

What is this 5%?

It is judgment. It is taste. It is "knowing where we want to go."

This means your productivity will be amplified by 20 times! The future does not need a room full of junior programmers; it only needs a "super individual" who understands business and human nature, accompanied by a group of tireless AIs, to outperform a traditional team of a hundred.

### **The AI tsunami has arrived, why are most people still pretending to sleep?**

Dario used a metaphor during the interview: a tsunami.

What surprised me is that the current AI models are already so close to human intelligence levels, yet society seems completely unaware of what is about to happen.

It's like a tsunami coming towards us; it is clearly visible on the horizon, just around the corner, but people are desperately looking for excuses, comforting themselves by saying: "That's not a tsunami; it's just a refraction of light."

Why is Dario so confident about the evolution of AI? Because he is one of the earliest discoverers and believers in the "Scaling Law."

For the Scaling Law, Dario used a highly visual metaphor: it's like a chemical reaction.

If you want to start a fire, you need different ingredients. If you put "data" and "computing power" in the correct proportions into the "model scale" reaction furnace, the final product of this chemical reaction is "intelligence."


This is not metaphysics but the cruel laws of physics and mathematics. As long as computing power and data continue to increase, AI will become smarter and smarter.

Five years ago, computers couldn't even draw a decent picture of a cat; today, you can send Claude a video of a monkey juggling and ask it "how many times did the ball change hands," and it can answer you accurately.

This is the "urgency" that Dario feels. People tend to predict the future with linear thinking, believing "this change is too big to happen," but technology is racing forward at an exponential speed.


When the tsunami arrives, if you are still on the beach collecting shells, the outcome is destined to be destruction.

### Where is the safe haven? In the next decade, ordinary people have only these two escape routes left

Since "intellectual labor" is being devoured by AI, what should we learn? What majors should our children choose?

Dario provided a "survival guide for the future." He believes that the future's moat is deeply rooted in the following three areas:

**First escape route: Extremely "human-centered" jobs**

AI can write perfect business plans, but AI cannot build trust with clients at the dinner table; AI can provide the most accurate medical diagnoses, but AI cannot hold a patient's hand.


Dario mentioned the example of radiologists. There was once a prediction that AI would eliminate radiologists because AI is more accurate at reading images than humans.

But the reality is that radiologists have not lost their jobs because the most technical part of their work—reading images—has been replaced by AI, but they now spend their time "communicating with patients, explaining conditions, and soothing emotions."

**Future high-paying jobs will belong to those who can connect with people, understand people, and mobilize people. Emotional intelligence, empathy, and the ability to build complex social networks will become the most expensive scarce resources.**

****

**Second escape route: Deeply "in the physical world"**

No matter how capable AI is in the virtual digital world, it still struggles to help you unclog a toilet or screw in a bolt in the real world.

Dario strongly recommends that young people focus on fields that intersect the "physical world" and "traditional engineering," such as semiconductor manufacturing, new energy infrastructure, and high-end manufacturing.


When the software world is turned into a red ocean by AI, the construction of the physical world becomes a safe haven due to its "bulkiness" and "need for real touch." If you can combine AI's analytical capabilities with the physical world, you will be invincible.

**Core foundational abilities: Street smarts and critical thinking**

In a world where AI can generate fake videos, fake images, and fake news at any time, what abilities are most important?

Dario believes it is critical thinking and street smarts.

"You don't want to be deceived by illusions; you don't want to hold false beliefs; you definitely don't want to be scammed."

In the future, distinguishing "truth from falsehood" will become a fundamental survival skill. Those who can only memorize without independent thinking will become the first batch of victims in the AI era.

### Wealth code: Outside of AI, where is the next trillion-dollar opportunity?

During this hours-long interview, the host posed a very tricky question to Dario------

"If you were given $100 right now and could only buy one stock or bet on one industry (other than your own AI field), what would you buy?"

Dario laughed. He did not recommend Microsoft or Nvidia.

He gave an unexpected but reasonable answer: biotechnology.


Don't forget that before founding a $40 billion AI empire, Dario was a top physicist and biophysicist, who once did postdoctoral research at Stanford Medical School.

He initially got into AI because he felt that the protein structures of biological systems were too complex for the human brain to handle, and he needed to invent AI to help him treat diseases.

Dario asserted: **"Biotechnology is about to undergo an AI-driven renaissance. We are about to cure a large number of despairing diseases."**

He specifically pointed out a niche track: **peptide therapies and cell-based therapies (such as CAR-T).**

Why? Because traditional small-molecule drugs are designed like a game of chance; whereas new-generation biotechnologies like peptides and mRNA have "programmable" characteristics. They are like computer code in biology, which can be digitally calculated and continuously optimized through AI.

When AI's computing power collides with "programmable biology," humanity will achieve significant breakthroughs in the battle against cancer, aging, and terminal diseases.

If you are looking for long-term investment opportunities or if your child is hesitating about studying biomedicine, Dario's judgment is worth considering.

### Stop making "shell applications" and learn to "play the piano"

As AI takes over more and more cognitive work, many people fear: Are we outsourcing our brains? Will we become like the characters in "WALL-E," unable to even do arithmetic?

Dario admitted: **If we carelessly use AI, humanity will indeed become dumber.**

****

Their research found that if students only let AI help with homework or if programmers blindly copy AI's code, their skills indeed degrade.

However, the choice is in the hands of humanity. **Just like after the invention of the calculator, humans did not lose their mathematical abilities; instead, they used calculators to calculate the parameters for the lunar landing trajectory.** Dario himself still often does mental math because "it allows mathematics to deeply integrate with my thought process."

AI will always be smarter than you, but that does not mean you do not need to learn. **The process of learning is the process of reshaping the neurons in your brain.**

For ordinary people who want to start a business or become super individuals in the AI era, Dario offers the following advice------

**1. Absolutely do not create** **"shell products."**

If you simply tweak the API of Claude or ChatGPT, create a nice UI, add some prompts, and sell it for money, Dario warns: "Such things have no moat; anyone can devour your income. You don't even need to wait for the AI giants to act; you will die out first."

**2. Establish extremely deep vertical barriers.**

Anthropic would never touch highly specialized vertical fields, such as cross-disciplinary AI in biomedicine or highly regulated financial services. The dirty work and vertical know-how that giants look down upon or are too lazy to do is the survival soil for ordinary entrepreneurs.

**3. Treat** **"prompt engineering"** **as practicing the piano.**

Many people complain that AI is not user-friendly because they simply do not know how to use it. Dario quoted a famous saying: "Writing prompts is like playing the piano. You cannot expect to sit down at the piano and play Beethoven right away."

To enable non-technical personnel to use AI effectively, Anthropic developed **Claude Co-work**, which requires no coding. But no matter how simple the tool is, you need to spend time on "hands-on practice."

We need to experiment, set contexts for AI, and establish AI agent mechanisms. Whoever learns to master this "steam engine" first will get a first-class ticket in the great reshuffle.


### First Principles are Your Only Weapon to Foresee the Future

At the end of this in-depth interview, Dario said the following:

In the past 10 years, I have repeatedly experienced this: when you extrapolate based on simple curves or deduce the future using simple logic, you will arrive at some counterintuitive conclusions. Many people will say, "That's crazy; it can't happen."

But in the end, it really did happen. You can almost "predict the future for free" with just a few empirical observations and thinking based on first principles."


**The first principle of the AI era is that the cost of intelligence will approach zero infinitely. Any mental labor that can be logical, data-driven, and repeatable will become worthless.**

What humans can do is to understand human hearts, connect with the physical world, control AI, and be among the 5% who can steer the ship.