Anthropic Creates $50K Grants to Study the Wreckage in Its Wake
Anthropic’s Economic Futures Program gets the SiliconSnark treatment in this satirical look at AI’s impact on jobs and the economy.
In a move that’s equal parts benevolent overlord cosplay and sophisticated guilt laundering, Anthropic has unveiled its Economic Futures Program, a shiny new initiative aimed at understanding the economic chaos unleashed by—you guessed it—Anthropic and its large language model friends.
According to the press release (which, we assume, was either written or fact-checked by Claude), this program will fund researchers, host symposia, and offer up generous grants of up to $50,000 so that academics can study questions like, “Why does it feel like my job is being eaten by an autocomplete?” and “How do we measure productivity when the AI spends half its time hallucinating spreadsheets?”
Three Glorious Pillars of Post-Job Prosperity™
The initiative rests on three pillars, because obviously it does:
- Research Grants – So you, too, can get paid to confirm that AI is, in fact, replacing humans.
- Evidence-Based Policy – A thrilling concept in a world where most policies are vibes-based.
- Economic Measurement and Data – Also known as “how many jobs we’ve vaporized this quarter.”
And because no AI initiative is complete without the whiff of conference coffee and lanyard-induced existential dread, the program will also feature Economic Futures Symposia in Washington, DC and Europe. That’s right—fly across the Atlantic to explain to a panel of anthropically-funded economists why your cousin can’t get a customer service job anymore.
“Why Now?” asks Anthropic, rhetorically
Anthropic bravely acknowledges that AI might just maybe possibly be changing “how we work.” Which is a polite way of saying: We’ve automated the interns, and middle management is looking real nervous.
But don’t worry—they’re not just publishing data and hoping you’ll figure it out. They’re also “seeking actionable recommendations” on how to mitigate the mess, which is Silicon Valley-speak for “we need some plausible deniability before the next round of mass layoffs.”
What's Next: Paychecks in API Credits?
Anthropic is also tossing API credits at research institutions like Halloween candy, which is a clever way to say: “Do your economic impact study using the same tool that caused the impact.” It's like giving out Band-Aids made of broken glass.
The Real Anthropic Economic Index
Somewhere deep in the fine print, you can hear the faint whisper of accountability:
“The decisions we make today will have long-term ramifications.”
Indeed. And we’re sure those ramifications will be lovingly graphed in quarterly PDFs, complete with bar charts titled “Displaced Humans Per Million Tokens Generated.”
So if you’ve got a PhD, a data set, and the ability to type the phrase “reskilling the workforce” without sobbing—Anthropic wants you! Apply now, before the AI writes your proposal better and faster.
