As artificial intelligence reshapes the workplace, Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark has some unexpected career advice for young people worried about their future: develop a hobby.

The remarks come as Anthropic says its AI assistant Claude now generates roughly 80% of the code used within the startup, underscoring how quickly the technology is changing the nature of work.

Forget Coding, Start Exploring

Speaking to BBC Newsnight this week, Clark argued that creativity and curiosity may become increasingly valuable as AI systems take on more routine work, including coding and other knowledge-based tasks.

“Develop a hobby,” Clark said when asked what advice he would give young people concerned that AI could eliminate the careers they are preparing for.

“Anyone who has a hobby has something that they’re passionate about and that they know more about than most people.”

Clark said hobbies help people cultivate curiosity and generate ideas — qualities he believes will become increasingly important in an AI-driven economy.

“You can have curiosity, you can have ideas, and you can use that to really get the most out of these AI systems,” he said, adding that those interests could lead to “amazing jobs, jobs that don’t even exist yet.”

Why Anthropic Is Hiring Philosophers

The comments come as Anthropic increasingly relies on AI to handle technical work.

Clark said the company is changing its hiring strategy, relying less on large engineering teams and increasingly bringing in experts from other disciplines.

“We’re now hiring a bunch of interdisciplinary experts like lawyers or philosophers,” he said.

When pressed on whether philosophy is suddenly a better career bet than software engineering, Clark doubled down.

“It’s a great time for philosophers. We’ve just hired a whole bunch of them here.”

Creativity Over Technical Skills?

Clark, who has a liberal arts background, said he has never viewed coding as the only path to success in technology.

“I would have always said go into the liberal arts,” he said.

Anthropic is now “limited more by the ability to generate good ideas than the ability to do the engineering to turn those ideas into reality,” Clark said.

“People that are creative and people that can think broadly, people that read a lot, people that have interests are the ones most benefited by this.”

As AI automates more routine tasks, Clark believes those who can generate novel ideas and think across disciplines could find themselves at an advantage.

“Indulge in curiosity and it pays back in how you can use this technology,” he said.

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