A new book entitled ‘Bridgital Nation: Solving Technology’s People Problem’ claims that between 2020 and 2030, 90 million people will join India’s working-age population. that decade.” And if you thought that this increasing competition in the labor market (which is already in a bad state) is a concern, the authors of the book N Chandrasekaran (the chairman of Tata Sons) and Roopa Purushothaman (chief economist, Tata Sons) also point out that the advancement of technology and the evolution of AI will also play a critical role in shaping the future of employment in India.
The evolution of AI has pushed us to the brink of a fourth industrial revolution, naturally raising the troubling question that is always asked when industrial revolutions are on the horizon: How will it affect our livelihoods? Will this revolution lead to massive job losses?
While it’s a highly complex question, and some social scientists, philosophers and industry experts paint a bleak picture of the future job market, suggesting that the AI revolution could have “a disproportionate impact on low-income workers,” the authors say. from Bridgital Nation that while there will be job losses due to AI penetration, many jobs will also be created. Excerpts from Chandrasekaran and Purushothaman’s writing:
For decades, we’ve been hearing in general terms that robots come for jobs, for the future, and for all of us. As early as 1964, a memo sent to the President of the United States foresaw a “cybernation revolution” that would result in “a system of almost unlimited productive capacity” that would replace human labor. Since then, the questions and concerns have become more specific. How will the arrival of machines affect jobs? Which jobs will disappear first? What does it mean for the way we work, live and play? The conversation is accompanied by video footage that seems to confirm our worst fears: we see machines in a sterile warehouse sort packages before they are shipped; we see the skeleton of a headless metal bone running, jumping over obstacles, jogging on snow, staggering but not falling after being pushed, and straightening itself if it falls over. We see more reliable models of ourselves.
The other view is more pragmatic. When new orders emerge, there are societal leaps in productivity, jobs and living standards. Jobs will be lost, but others will be added. More than 120 years ago, even before the start of Ford’s auto assembly line, it was clear that horse-drawn carriages were on the way. ‘[The] there will come a time when the horse-drawn vehicle will be the one that stands out, and the present novelty will be a thing of common use,” one reader wrote to the DailyExpertNews in 1899. As costs fell and the horseless carriage market grew, new technologies and jobs emerged at gas stations, repair shops and car dealerships. History tells us that these economic and technology-led transitions create feelings of discomfort and uncertainty.
The authors point out that we lack imagination when it comes to perceiving the future. We see it either in a terrifying fully automated version or as the status quo. But that is almost never the case. They write:
Now, as then, these views often look to a future without automation and a future with automation, not an intermediate future where the two coexist. Imagining where AI and automation, the main drivers of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, will end up is certainly an enticing and terrifying exercise. But what keeps governments and leaders up at night is not the final form. It is what precedes it: the inevitable social, political and business costs that will only gradually become apparent. They understand, deep in their bones, that this time is really different. Automation in the past focused on repetitive tasks, by hand and on foot. Now cognitive tasks – thinking itself – are the objects of automation. But as physicist Michio Kaku says of general cognitive ability — common sense, by another name — even today’s most advanced robots and algorithms have the intelligence of a cockroach. We have time. What we need is a new approach that sees AI and automation as a human resource, not a replacement for human intervention. If we do this, automation in India won’t look like anywhere else. We call this approach ‘Bridgital’. But first we need to understand India.
The authors also add that India will have to think about its problems in new ways, as the old ideas have proved unsuccessful time and again and this new way of thinking must and must include AI, but not at the expense of its vast human resources. resources.
“In the twenty-first century, these new ways need to leverage the power of artificial intelligence (AI), the cloud, machine learning and the Internet of Things (IoT), given the speed at which they expand what is possible on a day-to-day basis. Combining these technologies can provide answers to problems that may have been considered intractable a few years ago, but the technology approach requires careful consideration, meaning that you don’t get distracted by the many possibilities, or simply by the innovations of others. “But be keen on what is needed. Not technology for technology’s sake, but technology in context – applied in a way that makes sense to people, and can help increase the yield of India’s existing human and physical resources.”
(The above excerpts from ‘Bridgital Nation: Solving Technology’s People Problem’ are published with permission from Penguin Publishers, India. The book costs Rs 526.)