High AI agent costs could limit job displacement

Two tech investors say the high costs of deploying and running AI agents may keep them from replacing human workers who can do the same tasks more cheaply. Jason Calacanis said he has been paying $300 per day for an Anthropic Claude AI agent to help run his businesses, despite the bot operating at 10% to 20% of full capacity; that's $100k per year per agent.

He asked, "When do tokens outpace the salary of the employee?" Chamath Palihapitiya said the models need to be "at least two times as productive as another employee" and that he may need to set a budget on how much AI his business can use. Mark Cuban called that cost-based argument the smartest counterpoint to AI taking jobs, noting token and maintenance costs could make eight Claude agents cost twice as much as an employee per day—about $1,200—and questioning whether the bots deliver more than twice the productivity or account for qualitative issues like morale and morality.

Concerns over AI-driven job loss have prompted layoffs and debate.

ai agents, token costs, claude, jason calacanis, chamath palihapitiya, mark cuban, productivity, salaries, job displacement, maintenance costs