Hello, tech lovers! Today, we dive into a fascinating story about a startup aiming to revolutionize our work lives—sounds exciting, right?
Deep in Silicon Valley, a startup named Mechanize has set out with an audacious mission: to fully automate every type of work, transforming the entire economy. Founded by renowned AI researcher Tamay Besiroglu, the company envisions creating AI agents capable of replacing humans across all jobs.
Mechanize’s goal is massive—covering data, evaluation tools, and digital environments to facilitate automation of any profession. Although currently focusing on white-collar tasks, the bold ambition is to replace all human workers. The market potential is staggering, with US workers earning around $18 trillion annually, and global wages surpassing $60 trillion.
The response from social media has been quite intense, with many critics warning that such automation could have devastating effects on the human workforce. Despite this, the founder claims that automation will actually lead to increased wealth for humans, thanks to explosive economic growth and new opportunities. He suggests that in such an AI-driven world, human wages might even rise as workers take on roles that complement AI capabilities.
However, the current performance of AI agents is still unreliable—they often struggle with complex tasks and lack long-term planning abilities. Big tech companies like Salesforce, Microsoft, and OpenAI are all developing their own AI agents, trying to overcome similar hurdles. Meanwhile, many startups focus on specific tasks or pricing strategies for AI agents, aiming to improve their reliability and usefulness.
Besiroglu emphasizes that despite the extreme vision, the core technical challenge is valid: if each worker had a team of personal AI agents to assist in production, the resulting abundance could reshape our economy. Interestingly, even with these ambitious plans, the company’s backers include notable investors like Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross, who see value in the project’s potential.
He also argues that automation might ultimately benefit humans, not harm them—by increasing productivity and standard of living. That said, the reality still faces hurdles: AI agents today are far from perfect, often unable to perform reliably over long periods. The industry is actively working to address these limitations with various platforms and innovation in agent design.
At the end of the day, mechanize and similar ventures are pushing the boundaries of what AI can do. Whether or not they succeed, one thing’s clear—our future of work might be entering a whole new era of automation and abundance.