Years ago, when I started writing about Silicon Valley’s efforts to replace workers with artificial intelligence, most tech executives at least had the decency to lie about it.

“We’re not automating workers, we’re augmenting them,” the executives would tell me. “Our A.I. tools won’t destroy jobs. They’ll be helpful assistants that will free workers from mundane drudgery.”

Of course, lines like those — which were often intended to reassure nervous workers and give cover to corporate automation plans — said more about the limitations of the technology than the motives of the executives. Back then, A.I. simply wasn’t good enough to automate most jobs, and it certainly wasn’t capable of replacing college-educated workers in white-collar industries like tech, consulting and finance.

That is starting to change. Some of today’s A.I. systems can write software, produce detailed research reports and solve complex math and science problems. Newer A.I. “agents” are capable of carrying out long sequences of tasks and checking their own work, the way a human would. And while these systems still fall short of humans in many areas, some experts are worried that a recent uptick in unemployment for college graduates is a sign that companies are already using A.I. as a substitute for some entry-level workers.

On Thursday, I got a glimpse of a post-labor future at an event held in San Francisco by Mechanize, a new A.I. start-up that has an audacious goal of automating all jobs — yours, mine, those of our doctors and lawyers, the people who write our software and design our buildings and care for our children.

“Our goal is to fully automate work,” said Tamay Besiroglu, 29, one of Mechanize’s founders. “We want to get to a fully automated economy, and make that happen as fast as possible.”