Image by Srinivasan Venkataraman, from Unsplash
AI Startup Mechanize Aims To Replace All Professional Roles
- Written by Kiara Fabbri Former Tech News Writer
- Fact-Checked by Sarah Frazier Former Content Manager
The AI startup Mechanize has stated a controversial goal: to automate all professional roles, starting from software developers, through to teachers, and extending to lawyers and caregivers.
In a rush? Here are the quick facts:
- Mechanize aims to automate all professional roles using reinforcement learning systems.
- Training environments simulate real workspaces like software engineering desks.
- Founders believe full labor automation could take 10–30 years.
“Our goal is to fully automate work,” said co-founder Tamay Besiroglu, 29. “We want to get to a fully automated economy, and make that happen as fast as possible,” as reported in an interview with The New York Times .
The startup Mechanize emerged in 2024 through the collaboration of Besiroglu, Ege Erdil, and Matthew Barnett, who previously worked at Epoch AI.
The Times reports that the startup has gained financial support from Stripe’s Patrick Collison and Google’s Jeff Dean, among other prominent tech industry leaders. The company maintains partnerships with major AI organizations but keeps their names undisclosed.
Mechanize develops training environments through reinforcement learning to teach AI systems by allowing them to learn through trial and error in digital simulations, like a digital simulation of a software engineer’s desk. “It’s effectively like creating a very boring video game,” Besiroglu said to The Times.
Mechanize believes its system can eventually handle nearly every responsibility a person does at a computer. “We’ll only truly know we’ve succeeded once we’ve created A.I. systems capable of taking on nearly every responsibility a human could carry out at a computer,” the company wrote in a blog post .
But critics and experts raise ethical concerns. What happens to workers? Will society be ready for mass job loss?
Barnett, who describes himself as a libertarian, believes the trade-off is worth it: “If society as a whole becomes much wealthier, then I think that just outweighs the downsides of people losing their jobs.”
Mechanize’s founders estimate full labor automation could take 10 to 30 years. But critics question if society is ready. Still, the company fails to present any specific strategy for supporting workers who lose their jobs, except through general discussions about universal basic income.
Some critics argue that this shift poses serious risks for workers and the broader economy. According to Yanis Varoufakis, large technology platforms extract substantial “cloud serfs” from users and businesses, reducing the overall money circulating in the economy.
Varoufakis explains that the system depends on unpaid user content to create value for these companies, which intensifies the economic gap between platform owners and the general population.
Varoufakis argues that the economic power concentrated among digital “lords” threatens to worsen employment losses and economic turbulence, while diminishing public control over economic resources. These economic trends will likely persist without proper regulatory measures, which threaten both worker income stability and economic health.
Mechanize demonstrates Silicon Valley’s current state, where automation has transitioned from being a future concept to an active process that continues to speed up.
Image by Filip Mishevski, from Unsplash
News Sites Collapse Under Google’s AI Takeover
- Written by Kiara Fabbri Former Tech News Writer
- Fact-Checked by Sarah Frazier Former Content Manager
News publishers are struggling to survive in the age of AI.
In a rush? Here are the quick facts:
- Google’s AI tools are reducing news site traffic from search.
- HuffPost and Washington Post saw traffic drop over 50%.
- Publishers are shifting focus to direct reader engagement.
News websites are losing their traffic because of Google’s new AI tools such as AI Overviews and AI Mode tools, as reported in an extensive article by The Wall Street Journal (WSJ).
Google’s AI tools now provide answers to users without requiring them to follow links. The business model of publishers, which depends on website visits, becomes endangered when users avoid clicking links.
The Atlantic CEO, Nicholas Thompson, informed his staff that Google traffic will eventually reach zero levels in the future. He told WSJ, “Google is shifting from being a search engine to an answer engine. We have to develop new strategies.”
The News/Media Alliance, representing thousands of news outlets, recently accused Google of stripping publishers of both traffic and ad revenue.
Danielle Coffey, the group’s president said in a press release , “Links were the last redeeming quality of search that gave publishers traffic and revenue. Now Google just takes content by force and uses it with no return, the definition of theft.
William Lewis, publisher and CEO of The Washington Post, warned: “This is a serious threat to journalism that should not be underestimated,” as reported by WSJ.
Similar web data show that HuffPost, The Washington Post, and Business Insider experienced more than a 50% decline in their website traffic during the last three years, as reported by WSJ.
Business Insider reduced its workforce by 21% during the previous month. CEO Barbara Peng explained that the company made this move to maintain its ability to survive through “ extreme traffic drops outside of our control,”as reported by WSJ.
The New York Times experienced a 7.5% decrease in Google search traffic, which dropped from 44% to 36.5% since 2022, as noted by WSJ.
WSJ claims that it experienced an increase in search visitors, although they represented a decreasing portion of total website traffic.
In an interview with The Verge about publishers’ concerns, Google CEO Sundar Pichai insisted the company continues to drive traffic to websites. “No one sends traffic to the web in the way we do,” he said.
