Narayana Murthy AI warning to young Indians worried about job losses: ‘All they need to do is…’

Murthy urged young professionals to stop treating AI as a threat and start viewing it as the next major productivity tool, much like computers and the internet once were. In his view, success in the AI era will depend on adaptability and discipline. “Therefore, there is no need for youngsters to get worried. All that they need to do is become masters of these technologies by using them in an assistive manner. And by quickly learning how to use these technologies for their own benefit, by smart and hard work, by quickly learning new ideas and by discipline. So, the world will not end for the smart and the hardworking,” he added.

Joining the conversation, former HDFC Bank CEO and Carlyle Group Asia adviser Aditya Puri struck a more measured tone on the pace of disruption. He suggested both the excitement and the fear around AI may be overstated. “I think there is too much hype about AI and what it can do and how quickly it can do it. And correspondingly, there is too much negativity in terms of how many jobs will be lost, etc. Will some jobs be lost? Yes. Will new jobs be created? Yes,” Puri said.

He pushed back against sweeping predictions of mass joblessness, noting that full automation remains distant. “Total replacement is not going to happen. You will have Agentic AI. But the human is not going anywhere. It will be a combination that will be delivered… It’s not going to happen tomorrow. It’s going to take a decade or two,” he explained.

Their remarks come amid increasingly stark warnings from some AI pioneers. Computer scientist Geoffrey Hinton, often dubbed the “godfather of AI,” has cautioned that artificial intelligence could widen economic inequality by boosting corporate profits while displacing workers. “What’s actually going to happen is rich people are going to use AI to replace workers,” Hinton said last September, adding that the technology could concentrate wealth further.