In recent months, several tech entrepreneurs and executives have raised concerns about the potential impact of the rapid integration of AI on the workforce, particularly in India, which is adding millions of young people to its workforce every year.
Industry leaders have warned that while AI offers increased productivity and cost-effectiveness, it could also disrupt basic and routine white-collar roles on a scale that would affect multiple sectors and roles.
In a recent interview with Moneycontrol at IIM Bengaluru, Infosys and Catamaran Ventures founder NR Narayana Murthy expressed concerns about whether white-collar jobs are threatened by AI, especially in the IT services sector, which is a key source of employment and wealth creation for engineers.
Here is what he said
When asked, Murthy responded, “My own experiments using generative artificial intelligence for productivity have shown me that a smarter mind will get better quality and higher levels of productivity using these assistive technologies.”
He added that there was no need for young people to worry. Instead, they should try to become masters of these technologies by using them “in a helpful way,” Murthy said.
“By quickly learning how to use these technologies to your advantage, by working smart and hard, by learning new ideas quickly and with discipline. So for the smart and hard-working, the world will not end,” Moneycontrol said.
What did other leaders say?
Meanwhile, Vinod Khosla, founder of Khosla Ventures and an early-stage investor in OpenAI, has previously said that Indian outsourcing services are likely to “die out” within the next five years as AI automates most software programming and quality engineering tasks.
In a separate interview with HT, he also predicted that along with IT services, BPO is at risk of “completely disappearing” in the next five years due to technological advancements. He further noted that AI will wipe out most knowledge-based professions within the next 15 years.
However, some industry experts have conflicting views on the future of AI integration. One such perspective on the issue was provided by Devina Mehra, founder and CMD of asset management firm First Global, who earlier said that past patterns show that technology creates new jobs even as it disrupts the status quo.
“At least 50-70% of the tasks Indian bankers did in the early 1980s have been automated. On a static basis, it would appear that most banking jobs will disappear… But banking employment has grown, not fallen!” she said, using the banking sector as a reference.
