Will AI take my job? Or our children's jobs?

Indresh Kumar

Head of Data Science

VoltUp

LinkedIn

Will AI take my job? Or our children's jobs?

Short answer: no. Long answer: read on.

AI is a software, just like Excel, only it’s made in a completely new way. Instead of humans writing code (like how Microsoft made Excel), it learns on its own. For example: ChatGPT learnt how to chat with us by reading a lot of internet articles.

Learning on its own? That sounds scary to me.

Yes. It is scary. AI can learn a lot, way more than we do, with PhD level expertise in all areas of knowledge. But, here is the deal: knowledge doesn’t mean intent

AI has no intent to learn anything, or to even do anything. Has ChatGPT ever messaged in the morning asking you about that business proposal you made with it last night? Nope. AI doesn’t care.. It has no intent, no meaning, not even a bit of curiosity about the proposal it just made for you. It is a lifeless piece of software that followed your instructions, just like the elevator goes to the floor you instruct it to, or the microwave runs for the time you set it to.

Here is a thought experiment. Let’s give ChatGPT a non-fancy name. I would name it “word-calculator”. Just like a calculator doesn’t care about your calculation, ChatGPT doesn’t care about your nice big proposal either. It just makes some complex calculations - and it shows up as words on our screens. AI has no intent to take either your job, your Sunday morning breakfast.

Okay, but then why do I keep hearing about AI replacing humans?

You are right to be concerned. Even I am, and I develop AI for a living. We do keep hearing about AI replacing consultants, software developers, graphic designers or even video producers. It is a genuine threat, Or is it? Let’s take some examples of real problems to solve.

Example 1: 

• Before AI: If Indian defence needed to develop new drones for the airforce, they would require a team of engineers and strategists

• After AI: ChatGPT has little clue about dynamically changing geopolitical scenarios. It can only read what’s publicly written on the internet. How to develop a drone strategy for India is not a wikipedia article or a YouTube video for it to recycle. The defence still needs the same professionals as it did before.

Example 2:

• Before AI: if we needed to develop an EV charger booking app for our society, including demand prediction and automatic booking of slots for residents, we would need to go to a software and EV expert

• After AI: Try asking ChatGPT to make something this complex, and you will see how spectacularly it fails. We would still need the exact same professionals to do it as before.

What has really changed is simply that AI can recycle information much faster than humans copy-pasted off the internet. And it can also generate images and videos based on what already exists on the internet. It is limited to its birthplace of internet articles and videos. It can’t come up with anything new on its own (at least yet).

So you mean to say our jobs are safe?

Yes. We need even more jobs now. Business now will aim for bigger and grander, more moon-shot goals. Ones that earlier settled for delivering groceries will now aim for delivering groceries before you run out of them, automatically. Those who earlier built cars will now build cars that run on hydrogen fuel. The more complex the problem, the worse AI is at solving it - and the more humans you need for it. 

What AI really did was to make us think bigger, and provide a bit of assistance here and there towards this. What AI really transformed is not our relationship towards work, but towards our goals, and our ability to fulfil these goals. With this trajectory, we will think bigger, and one day, we will even solve the most complex problems of all: Mumbai traffic.