Artificial Intelligence (AI) is here. It is true that AI will multiply manifold human capabilities and productivity. India has a huge and growing wealth of human resources (at least until 2050). However, its quality is significantly different from the human resources of developed countries. In a developed country, practically everyone is school-educated and a great proportion is college-educated. There is an opportunity for life-long learning and acquiring new skills. In India, the demographic dividend comes with demographic burdens. While school enrolment at primary level is very high, there is a decline, at every stage, in enrolment at upper primary, secondary and higher secondary levels. Gross Enrolment Ratio in higher education is between 45-50%. Most college-enrolled students acquire an undergraduate degree that does not make them ‘skilled’ or ‘employable’ — the main reason why it is an onerous task for young men and women to find suitable jobs.
I have read a summary of Mr Dario Amodei’s (CEO, Anthropic) copyrighted 38-page essay ‘The Adolescence of Technology’. On economic disruption, he says that AI could disrupt labour markets at ‘unprecedented speed and across wide occupational categories, potentially displacing a significant portion of jobs, especially white-collar work in the near term’. It is scary. Another study in India found that AI recognises caste. If humans have taught caste-bias to AI, it is scarier.
Hon’ble prime minister is right that AI will open the doors to the future and fortune. But there is also fear that jobs will be lost. Routine and repetitive jobs such as ticket issuers and checkers, bus and train conductors, rail signal persons, traffic police officers, stenographers and typists, tourist guides, translators, lab technicians, bank tellers, private tutors, etc may vanish. Microsoft’s CEO said that many tasks in white collar jobs will be automated. The company axed thousands of jobs in 2025. Tata Consultancy Services announced in 2025 that it would ‘let go’ of more than 12,000 employees as part of a restructuring exercise. Mr Vinod Khosla predicted that AI could eliminate IT services and BPO firms could almost disappear within the next five years.
India’s biggest problem is lack of jobs. The current ‘official’ unemployment rate is 5.1 per cent, but we know it is more. Youth unemployment rate is 15 per cent. About 55 per cent of the ‘employed’ are self-employed or in casual labour. In the prosperous regions, agriculture operations are already mechanised. Rural families disguise unemployment with the excuse that the young man or woman is ‘self-employed’. If urban blue-collar jobs too become scarce, and joblessness spreads to educated youth in ‘skilled’ sectors such as Information Technology and IT products/services, the situation will become explosive.
How ready is India and the world to tackle the inevitable challenges? As far as I gather, the world including India is not yet ready with solutions. The Chief Economic Adviser (CEA) drew a distinction between the impact of AI on advanced economies (facing demographic decline, AI may be a plus) and developing countries (AI will be a stress test for state capacity). Naturally, the solutions will be different. His solution is that “relentless execution could help India become the first large society ….to align technological adoption with mass employability.” I wish the solution was so simple.
Difficult measures
The early results of relentless adoption of technology are reduction in jobs, at least in Indian factories. But there is time, as the Economist says, between “invention and diffusion”, and to take the hard measures that will absorb the impact of technological adoption. For example, given the vast numbers of job-seekers and jobs, India must be prepared to:
🔴 Recognise that, unlike developed countries, India is required to create a variety of jobs for the youth who may drop out at upper primary, secondary or higher secondary levels of school;
🔴 Separate, at the higher secondary level, the academic stream and the non-academic stream of students based on aptitude and merit;
🔴 Close the numerous ‘pass’ courses in non-science subjects and channel the students to post-graduate education, STEM or skilling courses;
🔴 Massively invest in education, healthcare and environment management;
🔴 Develop local/regional markets that will produce and consume quality goods and services supported by local or regional banks, and not be obsessed with Big business, Big markets, Big chains and Big banks;
🔴 Acknowledge that, in the present day, MSMEs are the biggest job creators in India. If AI can help MSMEs — as promised by the Minister of Information Technology — MSMEs will be able to create more jobs. The CEA has noted that India needs to create “at least 80 lakh jobs every year.” The required number will be more; and
🔴 Require those who will adopt AI and, resultantly, destroy jobs, to create an equal number of jobs. We don’t have to agree with Mr Jamie Dimon (CEO, JP Morgan Chase) and ban ‘lay-offs’. Corporate Social Responsibility has infused a degree of social responsibility in businesses; that must include job-creating responsibility.
Dystopian Future
A world without jobs, or fewer jobs, will stare at a dystopian future. ‘Work’ defines a human. No other living creature works voluntarily except to hunt for food. If AI will do all our work, and bring prosperity to all, what will humans do? While the impact of AI unfolds during the next few years, it is time to ponder the question.
A world without jobs, or fewer jobs, will stare at a dystopian future. ‘Work’ defines a human. No other living creature works voluntarily except to hunt for food. 
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