Now Reading: PPFAS CIO Rajeev Thakkar: AI job fears overblown
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PPFAS CIO Rajeev Thakkar: AI job fears overblown
PPFAS Mutual Fund CIO and Director Rajeev Thakkar has told unitholders that fears around artificial intelligence threatening jobs are largely overblown at the aggregate level. Citing tech analyst Benedict Evans, Thakkar noted…
The Story in Brief
PPFAS Mutual Fund CIO and Director Rajeev Thakkar has told unitholders that fears around artificial intelligence threatening jobs are largely overblown at the aggregate level. Citing tech analyst Benedict Evans, Thakkar noted that automation has been happening for 200 years, and while some jobs disappear, new ones emerge. Evans argued that attempting to quantify AI's impact on jobs is impossible, pointing out that accounting automation actually increased the number of CPAs over 50 years. Thakkar said while some roles face real pain, AI will create more work in areas like cyber security.
The Economic Times reports Thakkar wrote his note earlier this month, comparing it to past bank union protests over computerisation. He said that despite multiple waves of automation, banks today employ far more people than in the 1980s and 1990s. On IT services, Thakkar's base assumption is that AI will write significant code, but the need for human implementation remains, just assisted by AI.
The Indian Opinion
The narrative that AI will kill Indian IT jobs is tempting but lazy. Thakkar rightly points to history: each automation wave created more jobs overall. Yet the pain for mid-level coders and support staff is real, and aggregate figures can mask individual trauma. The real question is not whether total jobs will fall, but how quickly the industry can retrain 1 lakh or more workers. Watch the next IT sector hiring data: if net employment stays flat or rises, the doomsayers will have been proved wrong again.
Source: economictimes.indiatimes.com
This story was synthesised by AI from the source linked above.
