Anthropic's Boris Cherny predicts significant job transformation due to AI automation, foreseeing a shift from traditional software engineering roles to a broader "builder" function, while Pope Leo XIV issued an encyclical addressing AI's impact on work, warfare, and child safety, and President Donald Trump abandoned a proposed AI executive order.
Cherny, creator and head of Anthropic's Claude Code, believes the role of "software engineer" could disappear as early as this year, evolving into a "builder" role where designers, product managers, and managers also ship code. He noted that he hasn't written code in over six months, considering coding "solved" for his type of work. Despite this, Cherny offers an optimistic outlook, predicting, "if we talk about people writing code, or using agents to write code, I think there will be 100 times more engineers than there are today."
This transformation, he explained, means companies might hire fewer traditional engineers but more "builders," as AI increases individual productivity, allowing companies to pursue more projects. Cherny drew parallels to historical technological shifts like the tractor and washing machine, emphasizing that while AI makes individuals more productive, it often leads to doing more work rather than less. He also highlighted the entrepreneurial opportunities, stating, "There has never been a better time in history to do it; it's the golden age."
Meanwhile, Pope Leo XIV released his first encyclical, "Magnifica Humanitas," focusing on "safeguarding the human person in the time of artificial intelligence." Presented alongside Anthropic co-founder Chris Olah, the encyclical advocates for "social criteria" in introducing automation, worker protections, and retraining. Pope Leo warned against prioritizing profits over jobs and explicitly stated, "it is not permissible to entrust lethal or otherwise irreversible decisions to artificial systems," also calling for policies to protect children from harmful AI-generated content. Chris Olah emphasized the need for "moral voices that the incentives cannot bend" in the tech industry.
In a separate development, President Donald Trump postponed a planned executive order on AI and cybersecurity, reportedly due to his general aversion to regulation. A source familiar with the matter indicated Trump felt "the whole thing was unnecessary" and "just something doomers wanted." The draft order, which proposed a voluntary oversight system for AI developers, was described by law professors Kevin Frazier and Alan Rozenshtein as "about as modest a frontier-AI intervention as the federal government could put on paper," with its abandonment leaving a regulatory void.