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AI is a critical tool for solving India's talent shortages in essential public sectors rather than a threat to the overall labour market, argues Neeraj Aggarwal, Managing Director & Partner at BCG. He believes that for a country facing a lack of professionals in key areas, the technology serves as a necessary force to expand reach and impact.
"I think it's question which needs a lot of examination," Aggarwal stated. "I think there are lots of problems where India is talent deficit. Take healthcare, take education. We need more doctors, we need more teachers. So for many of those problems, AI is a huge multiplier." While Aggarwal acknowledges that the composition of the workforce will shift, he remains optimistic that the "net-net" result will be a benefit to society. He emphasises that the goal of integrating these tools should be the overall improvement of the human condition. "For some of the other problems, maybe AI will reduce the number of jobs," he noted. "So the mix of jobs will change, but I think you need to do the net-net of where it's a beneficiary, where it's a neck. I continue to be positive about if done well, if done well, it can lead to more human flourishing." Jagdish Mitra, Founder and CEO of Humanizetech.ai, maintains that the focus of the AI era will be the transformation of roles into more productive versions of themselves rather than their outright disappearance. He suggests that while the lower levels of the workforce will feel the most pressure, the jobs themselves will simply evolve to require higher technical proficiency. "The bottom, what we call as the bottom of the pyramid in a lot of cases, will get strongly impacted by AI," Mitra explained. "But that doesn't mean that the jobs will go away, the jobs will transition into those that use AI to be more faster, smarter, and more productive." Mitra argues that the risk of job loss is tied directly to a worker's ability to adapt to new technologies, noting that the rapid speed of AI development is the primary challenge for today's workforce. He views this as a continuation of historical shifts where technology has consistently redefined professional roles. "The jobs will go away from those who don't learn those skills to those who learn those skills," Mitra stated. "So to me, I think jobs will get redefined as it has been for years and centuries. Now with the speed of new technology like AI, it'll only be faster. So you'll see new jobs, new roles." This redefinition, according to Mitra, will take place across all sectors - from agriculture to retail - as businesses move human capital away from manual tasks and toward high-value experiences. For example, he envisions automation handling logistics while humans focus on the quality of service provided to the end user. "Maybe certain things that you do today, say for example, you do stuff about moving out in your warehouse in a retail industry," Mitra remarked. "That may get transitioned by a robot, but it will move towards someone who's probably helping customers experience the product better. So those are things that you'll see in every industry. The roles will transition into something different," he said. (ANI)
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