A new Silicon Valley startup, Mechanize, has launched with a mission to automate all work and the economy using artificial intelligence (AI). The founder, Tamay Besiroglu, who also runs a non-profit AI research organization called Epoch, claims that this will lead to “explosive economic growth” and higher standards of living.
Besiroglu’s goal is to provide data, evaluations, and digital environments for automating any job. He estimates the market potential to be around $60 trillion per year, with a focus on white-collar work rather than manual labor jobs that require robotics.
However, the response to Mechanize has been brutal, with many critics expressing concern about the impact on human workers. Some have pointed out that if AI agents do all the work, humans will lose their income and may not have access to the goods and services produced by the agents.
Despite these concerns, Besiroglu argues that human wages should increase in an AI-automated world due to the value they bring to complementary roles. He suggests that people can receive income from other sources such as rents, dividends, and government welfare.
Mechanize is backed by a group of high-profile investors, including Nat Friedman, Daniel Gross, and Jeff Dean. The startup plans to hire and work on solving the technical issues surrounding AI agents’ performance.
While some critics see Mechanize’s mission as unrealistic, others acknowledge that there are legitimate technical challenges in developing agentic platforms. Giant companies like Salesforce and Microsoft are already working on similar solutions, and agent startups abound.
Source: https://techcrunch.com/2025/04/19/famed-ai-researcher-launches-controversial-startup-to-replace-all-human-workers-everywhere