AI fellowship plan pitched as answer to economic disruption fears

A former Obama administration official is warning that the rise of artificial intelligence could deepen an already strained economy unless workers and public-serving institutions get faster access to new training. In a Fortune commentary, he pointed to a planned Anthropic-backed fellowship program as one model for using AI to widen opportunity rather than leave more Americans behind.

The argument draws on the economic collapse of 1893, which the commentary describes as a warning from an earlier period of technological and industrial upheaval. The Economic History Association has reported that U.S. unemployment rose from 3% to 18% over two years during that crisis, while CUNY OpenEd materials say joblessness reached more than a third of workers in New York and nearly half in Michigan.

The commentary says the immediate causes of the 1893 depression were financial, including a railroad bubble, pressure on gold reserves and bank failures. It argues that decades of movement from farm work into industrial cities left the country exposed before the panic hit, with urban areas unable to absorb displaced workers and rural communities already weakened.

Smithsonian Magazine has described the 1894 march by unemployed workers to Washington as the first protest march on the capital demanding federal jobs legislation. The Fortune commentary uses that episode to argue that technology did not directly cause the depression but helped create social conditions that made the downturn harder to endure.

Mobility concerns frame the AI debate

The former official connects that history to current anxiety over AI and economic mobility. He cites research showing that Americans born in 1940 had a greater than 90% chance of earning more than their parents, while those born in 1985 faced roughly even odds.

The commentary also cites Brookings Institution research saying nearly half of U.S. households struggle to cover basic costs. It argues that many workers are losing ground before AI’s labor-market effects are fully felt.

The author says researchers now understand more about what supports mobility than policymakers did in the 1890s. He cites Benjamin Bloom’s work on tutoring and Raj Chetty’s research on opportunity, along with a Harvard summary associated with Nathaniel Hendren that attributes about two-thirds of the decline in mobility to public and private policy choices that separated national growth from worker prosperity.

Claude Corps presented as one response

The program highlighted in the commentary is “Claude Corps,” a concept attributed to Anthropic co-founder Daniela Amodei. The plan aims to place 1,000 AI-trained fellows inside hundreds of civic organizations, including food banks, legal aid groups, veterans’ networks and refugee resettlement agencies.

Anthropic is working with CodePath, a nonprofit created by technology entrepreneurs, to train the fellows, according to the commentary. CodePath’s most recent annual report says it has helped prepare more than 40,000 alumni for engineering roles, with 40% coming from households earning less than $50,000.

The Fortune commentary argues that a well-trained young worker can now build tools inside a nonprofit or public-serving organization that would have required outside consultants several years ago. It says placing fellows across institutions that serve millions of people could improve services in areas such as education, job training, housing, community lending, mental health and access to public benefits.

The author says preventing a severe economic shock will take broader action than one fellowship program. He calls for new approaches to training, lower living costs and safety nets suited to a faster-changing economy, comparing the scale of the challenge to earlier national projects such as the Works Progress Administration, the Marshall Plan, the space program and the polio vaccine effort.

This story draws on original reporting from Fortune.