Artificial Intelligence will end up "creating more jobs and help the economy", Jay Puri, the Executive Vice President of US-based NVIDIA technology giant said Wednesday at NDTV's Ind.ai Summit. "AI is a very powerful force and, like every other technological disruption we have had, it will have an impact," Puri said, noting "some jobs will be lost but new ones will be created."
Asked about the 'elephant in the room', i.e., fears that increased AI adoption across industries will lead to massive job cuts and unemployment, as is already happening at tech-heavy companies like Amazon, Puri argued the technology actually "democratises" productivity.
"To begin with, what we are finding is that AI in our knowledge economy is impacting people's ability to augment what they are doing... it is increasing the productivity of knowledge workers."
"If you are a doctor, for example, you have access to AI that gives you better diagnoses and helps take care of patients. That improves the overall ability of hospitals to become more profitable... hire more doctors. And that is true in just about every industry," Puri claimed.
"When a company becomes more productive it becomes more profitable... and it can hire more people. So, I do believe that with AI it is actually going to create more jobs and help the economy overall."
On the India-specific use scenario, Puri said, "With AI you're going to be able to democratise things in India, like help farmers in rural areas to improve their yield on crops or take healthcare into places where you couldn't earlier."
Meanwhile, Puri also said that AI's ability to manufacture intelligence at scale is a "miracle" and that it is unleashing a new industrial revolution.
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AI's impact on jobs has been a hot topic since the technology first broke cover, and the rapid pace at which it has evolved has only made those concerns more urgent.
Last week, for example, Microsoft's AI chief, Mustafa Suleyman, warned that most white-collar jobs could be automated within the next 12 to 18 months.
These include jobs like document inspection, financial analysis, compliance checks, marketing optimisation, scheduling, and customer communication, he told the Financial Times.
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Days earlier the Indian government's Chief Economic Adviser, V Anantha Nageswaran, said AI advancements put coding and cognitive jobs at risk, which will inevitably affect hiring trends.
And tech entrepreneur Matt Shumer warned that AI could cut half of all entry-level white-collar jobs within the next five years. He also said the shift is unfolding faster than most realise.
