Anthropic: 91% of staff expect AI Nobel-level discovery by 2030
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In a survey conducted in August 2026, Anthropic compared U.S. adults’ and its staff’s expectations about AI capabilities and economic effects. The company says 91% of staff expect AI to be able to make a Nobel-level scientific discovery by 2030, compared with 39% of U.S. adults. Staff also estimate that AI will be able to do an average of 75% of their current work by 2030, compared with 28% among U.S. workers; more than half of staff expect AI to do at least 80% of their tasks, versus 5% of U.S. workers.
Anthropic also says that in both groups, people who expect AI to do more of their own work anticipate higher unemployment. At the same level of expected automation of their own work, the groups’ unemployment forecasts were similar.
Why it matters · editorial interpretation
The gap between Anthropic employees’ expectations and those of U.S. workers helps contextualize how exposure to AI may shape views about automation and scientific discovery. The similar relationship between expected automation and predicted unemployment in both groups suggests that this concern is not limited to the company’s staff.