Azeem Azhar's Exponential View
Anthropic’s Head of Economics on AI adoption data, Claude Code, the burden of knowledge & the next generation of experts
at risk or if not already being automated away.
Azeem Azhar's Exponential View
Anthropic’s Head of Economics on AI adoption data, Claude Code, the burden of knowledge & the next generation of experts
And I'm curious about, you know, when you look at that and you look in the data and you extrapolate, are we creating a long-term institutional fragility problem that a lot of what's being automated is what used to be the apprenticeship work as you discovered doing all those literature reviews, you know, a few years ago?
Azeem Azhar's Exponential View
Anthropic’s Head of Economics on AI adoption data, Claude Code, the burden of knowledge & the next generation of experts
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Azeem Azhar's Exponential View
Anthropic’s Head of Economics on AI adoption data, Claude Code, the burden of knowledge & the next generation of experts
Let's go back to the personal because I'm going to go...
Azeem Azhar's Exponential View
Anthropic’s Head of Economics on AI adoption data, Claude Code, the burden of knowledge & the next generation of experts
outside of the wheelhouse.
Azeem Azhar's Exponential View
Anthropic’s Head of Economics on AI adoption data, Claude Code, the burden of knowledge & the next generation of experts
But the beauty of doing this in my own conversation is that I can and no one can stop me.
Azeem Azhar's Exponential View
Anthropic’s Head of Economics on AI adoption data, Claude Code, the burden of knowledge & the next generation of experts
So here I go.
Azeem Azhar's Exponential View
Anthropic’s Head of Economics on AI adoption data, Claude Code, the burden of knowledge & the next generation of experts
You think about London taxi drivers, which is something a bit like Henry Ford's factory that you and I have to talk about a lot.
Azeem Azhar's Exponential View
Anthropic’s Head of Economics on AI adoption data, Claude Code, the burden of knowledge & the next generation of experts
The London taxi drivers hippocampus grows because they spend a lot of time studying the maps and essentially becoming homing pigeons in London.
Azeem Azhar's Exponential View
Anthropic’s Head of Economics on AI adoption data, Claude Code, the burden of knowledge & the next generation of experts
You know, when you read a book, the book changes you.
Azeem Azhar's Exponential View
Anthropic’s Head of Economics on AI adoption data, Claude Code, the burden of knowledge & the next generation of experts
And it's the act of doing that that changes a person, that sort of judgment that a biologist in their 60s has or a shopkeeper in their 60s who's done it for a long time to look at the stock and say, well, we're low on chewing gum.
Azeem Azhar's Exponential View
Anthropic’s Head of Economics on AI adoption data, Claude Code, the burden of knowledge & the next generation of experts
is a function of judgment that is almost certainly reflected in, you know, connections in the brain and changes there.
Azeem Azhar's Exponential View
Anthropic’s Head of Economics on AI adoption data, Claude Code, the burden of knowledge & the next generation of experts
There is something about the skill that you developed
Azeem Azhar's Exponential View
Anthropic’s Head of Economics on AI adoption data, Claude Code, the burden of knowledge & the next generation of experts
The skills I have developed, which involved late nights, mundane, repetitive work that allow us to work at this higher level.
Azeem Azhar's Exponential View
Anthropic’s Head of Economics on AI adoption data, Claude Code, the burden of knowledge & the next generation of experts
So I'm thinking less about this from a skills acquisition perspective.
Azeem Azhar's Exponential View
Anthropic’s Head of Economics on AI adoption data, Claude Code, the burden of knowledge & the next generation of experts
point.
Azeem Azhar's Exponential View
Anthropic’s Head of Economics on AI adoption data, Claude Code, the burden of knowledge & the next generation of experts
I'm thinking about this from the perspective of an individual and how they establish certain classes of mastery.
Azeem Azhar's Exponential View
Anthropic’s Head of Economics on AI adoption data, Claude Code, the burden of knowledge & the next generation of experts
My team will tell you that there are certain things that I just will not notice and I'm kind of rubbish at them.
Azeem Azhar's Exponential View
Anthropic’s Head of Economics on AI adoption data, Claude Code, the burden of knowledge & the next generation of experts
And there are certain things where I have such acute mastery that I can spot the crack from two miles away.
Azeem Azhar's Exponential View
Anthropic’s Head of Economics on AI adoption data, Claude Code, the burden of knowledge & the next generation of experts
And that has come not because of genes, but it's come from banging my head against the wall for 25 years.