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Silicon Valley Startup Sparks Outcry with Plan to Automate All Work
A Silicon Valley entrepreneur is facing widespread criticism after unveiling a startup with the goal of fully automating the global economy.
Tamay Besiroglu, an AI researcher and founder of the non-profit Epoch, announced the launch of his new company, Mechanize, on Thursday.
The startup aims to automate “all work” by developing AI agents capable of replacing human labour across industries, focusing initially on white-collar roles.
Besiroglu estimated the potential market value of labour automation at around $60 trillion annually, describing the opportunity as “absurdly large.”
He said Mechanize would build the tools, datasets, and evaluation methods necessary to drive the replacement of human workers with AI systems.
However, the announcement triggered a strong backlash, including from within Besiroglu’s own research institute. One Epoch director posted on X (formerly Twitter): “Yay just what I wanted for my bday: a comms crisis.”
Critics expressed concern that Mechanize’s goals could undermine the impartial reputation of Epoch, which is known for analysing AI’s economic impacts and benchmarking AI systems.
Anthony Aguirre, a fellow AI researcher, posted: “Huge respect for the founders’ work at Epoch, but sad to see this.
The automation of most human labour is indeed a giant prize for companies… I think it will be a huge loss for most humans.”
Mechanize has received backing from prominent investors including Nat Friedman, Daniel Gross, Patrick Collison, and Jeff Dean, although some declined to comment when approached by US media.
Marcus Abramovitch, a managing partner at AltX and one of the investors, defended the move, calling Besiroglu’s team “exceptional.”
Responding to critics, Besiroglu insisted that automation could lead to widespread prosperity.
“Completely automating labour could generate vast abundance, much higher standards of living, and new goods and services that we can’t even imagine today,” he said.
He acknowledged that a future without traditional employment could require new models of income distribution, pointing to rents, dividends, and government welfare as potential sources of support.
The controversy surrounding Mechanize also rekindled scrutiny of Epoch’s earlier relationship with OpenAI, after it emerged that the non-profit had developed benchmarks used by OpenAI to promote its latest AI model.
Despite the backlash, Besiroglu maintains that significant technical challenges remain before full automation is possible, highlighting current AI agents’ limitations in reliability, memory, and independent task execution.
Major companies such as Salesforce, Microsoft, and OpenAI are also racing to improve agent-based systems.
Mechanize is currently recruiting new staff as it pushes forward with its ambitious, and divisive, mission.
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Like it or not, Epoch coming. Politicians in the Caribbean will need a new political model.
They no longer will politicians be able to promise no show jobs for a vote .
Machines don’t vote but they get the job done.
While the vision behind Mechanize may be ambitious, it is deeply flawed. The very fact that the company is hiring humans today proves that full automation remains out of reach — and likely always will be in critical areas.
Human work is not just about performing tasks; it is about creativity, judgment, compassion, innovation, and leadership — things no AI can replicate authentically.
Beyond labor, if Mechanize envisions a world without human workers, does it also envision a world without human beings? Will AI create human life too? Will the next generation be biological humans or machines?
Humanity cannot be reduced to ‘problems to solve’ through automation. We are the reason technology exists, not an inconvenience to be engineered away.
The push to automate everything is clearly driven by the pursuit of vast economic gains, but it dangerously ignores the social, emotional, and existential roles that work and purpose play in society.
Rather than attempting to eliminate human work — and by extension, human value — Mechanize and others should focus on building technologies that serve, uplift, and preserve humanity.
Prosperity without humanity is not progress — it is destruction period.
Can’t happen under God’s watch. The world was created by the Almighty not by Mechanize. Mechanize needs to get outta here with his AI nonsense. Talking about replacing people with machines. Agent of satan.
AI robots can work and we can collect the money….
We should be aiming to create more employments for humans not less. For those investors who are backing these projects, who are going to be your consumers, It have to be AI.
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