The advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI) casts a “huge pall of uncertainty” when it comes to jobs, considering its impact on workers across all skill levels – low, semi and high, says the Economic Survey. The biggest disruption for the future of work is the accelerated growth in AI, which is poised to revolutionise the global economy. India would not remain immune to this transformation.
Taking a note of the growing concerns around impact of AI on employment, the survey said technological leap has potential to disrupt growth and thus it requires a concerted effort among Centre, states and even corporates to minimise disruptions. “These will create barriers and hurdles to sustained high growth rates for India in the coming years and decades.”
To protect jobs, there is a need to quickly adapt to advancements. “With AI taking roots in several spheres of economic activity, job market must adapt, while steering the technological choices towards collective welfare is key.”
It said while AI has a considerable potential for boosting productivity, it can also “disrupt employment” in certain sectors. “As AI systems continue to get smarter and adoption increases, the future of work will be reshaped… Routine tasks, including customer service, will likely witness a high degree of automation, creative sectors will see extensive usage of AI tools for image and video creation, personalised AI tutors can reshape education and sectors like healthcare can witness accelerated drug discovery.”The survey also said India’s services exports, primarily the BPO sector, could be badly hit due to the advent of AI, and thus companies should devise strategies to tackle the reversal.
“Next wave of technological evolution might bring the curtains down on boom in telecom and rise of internet facilitated BPOs. In this milieu, the corporate sector has a responsibility, as much to itself as it is to society, to think harder about ways AI will augment labour rather than displace workers.” On impact of AI in the services sector, the survey said studies suggest it is likely to “restrain the growth opportunities for business services progressively” and, therefore, poses a challenge to long-term sustainability and job creation.
The survey, however, noted that even while posing challenges to jobs, AI will emerge as an opportunity to create employment. “… India is an attractive destination for AI investment due to its relatively low operating costs and world’s second-largest pool of highly skilled AI, machine learning, and big data workers.” India – with its vast demographic dividend and a very young population – is “uniquely situated” as AI poses both risks and opportunity.
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