AI agents not worth the cost as humans still cheaper: Tech execs

4 hours ago

The precocious costs of deploying and moving artificial quality agents successful the workforce whitethorn forestall them from replacing humans who tin bash the aforesaid enactment astatine little cost, accidental 2 multimillionaire tech investors.

Tech capitalist Jason Calacanis said connected the All-In podcast connected Saturday that helium has been paying $300 per time for an Anthropic Claude AI cause to assistance tally his businesses, contempt the bot lone operating astatine 10% to 20% of afloat capacity.

“When bash tokens outpace the wage of the employee?” Calacanis questioned, referring to the usage allowance, called tokens, that users indispensable acquisition to usage astir AI models.

Social Capital CEO Chamath Palihapitiya said helium had the aforesaid occupation and that the outgo of the models means they “need to beryllium astatine slightest 2 times arsenic productive arsenic different employee.” He added helium whitethorn request to acceptable a fund connected however overmuch AI his concern tin use.

What Happens When AI Tokens Cost More Than Your Employees?@Jason:

“We, with our agents, deed $300/day per cause utilizing the Claude API, similar instantly. And that was doing, maybe, 10 oregon 20%. That's $100k/year per agent.”@chamath:

“We're getting to a spot wherever we person to… pic.twitter.com/5N0rteNFts

— The All-In Podcast (@theallinpod) February 18, 2026

Tech capitalist Mark Cuban said connected Thursday that the precocious outgo of AI adoption successful the workforce raised by Calacanis and Palihapitiya was the smartest counter-argument he’d seen to AI taking implicit jobs.

Cuban said that with the outgo of tokens and maintenance, it could outgo doubly arsenic overmuch for 8 Claude AI agents “to bash what an worker does per day” for $1,200.

He questioned whether the AI bots were much than doubly arsenic productive arsenic a human. oregon if determination were “qualitative issues similar morale, morality […] that can’t beryllium quantified, that request to spell into the decision.”

The menace of AI replacing ample swathes of the workforce has caused uncertainty successful caller years, arsenic immoderate companies person initiated layoffs, pointing to their usage of AI making immoderate jobs obsolete.

A probe insubstantial from Microsoft successful July found that knowledge-based occupations, on with lawsuit work and income roles, were astir astatine hazard of being replaced by AI.

Related: China’s AI pb volition signifier crypto’s future 

White House AI and crypto czar David Sacks is 1 of galore who assertion specified fears are overhyped, saying successful August that AI inactive needs to beryllium prompted and verified to “drive concern value.”

However, others, specified arsenic concern consulting steadfast McKinsey & Co, person highlighted that the constituent of these AI agents is to automate tasks end-to-end, operating without changeless quality input.

Stablecoins could beryllium agentic AI’s autochthonal currency

The usage of AI agents has grown successful popularity among crypto users, and stablecoin issuer Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire predicted past period that billions of AI agents volition be transacting with stablecoins for mundane payments connected behalf of users wrong 5 years.

Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao said successful January that crypto would extremity up being the autochthonal currency for AI agents owed to blockchain being the “most autochthonal exertion interface for AI agents.”

AI agents are already operating connected several blockchains, specified arsenic Ethereum Layer 2 Base, wherever AIXBT, via the Virtuals Protocol, makes micropayments and facilitates trades connected behalf of users, portion ASI Alliance connected Fetch.ai tin negociate assets and coordinate different economical tasks for users.

On Wednesday, OpenAI launched a caller benchmark evaluating however good antithetic AI models detect, patch, and adjacent exploit information vulnerabilities recovered successful astute contracts.

OpenAI said the probe was utile arsenic it is becoming much important to measure their show successful “economically meaningful environments.”

“Smart contracts unafraid billions of dollars successful assets, and AI agents are apt to beryllium transformative for some attackers and defenders,” it said.

Magazine: IronClaw rivals OpenClaw, Olas launches bots for Polymarket — AI Eye

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