Anthropic thinks AI might cause Great Depression... Don't worry, we've got an app for that!

Anthropic published an economic policy framework this week laying out what should happen if its technology causes mass unemployment. The company has split the problem into three tiers: 5% unemployment (bad), 10% unemployment (worse), and what it calls "unprecedented unemployment," which presumably means something in Great Depression territory, when one in four Americans was out of work.

For the mild scenario, Anthropic suggests workforce training grants and baby investment accounts. For the middling one, expanded unemployment insurance. For the catastrophic one, it admits it isn't sure, but floats universal basic income, sovereign wealth funds, and taxing AI companies by the token. Which is a bit like a car manufacturer publishing a pamphlet on what to do if cars turn out to be too dangerous to drive, and the final chapter just says "we're still working on it."

The company has pledged $350 million toward researching these questions. It has not mentioned slowing down.

The genuinely interesting detail, which Gizmodo quite rightly flagged, is that nobody asked whether Claude helped write the plan for dealing with Claude-caused unemployment. Anthropic didn't respond. Probably fine.