What has the late Sitaram Kesri got to do with artificial intelligence and layoffs by global companies? Nothing, on the face of it, as Indians look back at the Bihar leader who was in the news last week as a controversy brewed over how he was shunted out as president of the Congress party. But before that event, for decades, he was the Congress treasurer, whose eminence was summarised in a latter-day proverb: "Na khata, na bahi, jo Kesri kahe, wahi sahi" (No account, no book. What Kesri says, that's what is right).
That saying belongs to the age when the red-coloured cloth-bound account book ('bahi') was where accounts were kept, and Kesri was the trusted man who, as the legend goes, received cash in kerosene tins and kept track of who donated how much with no questions asked. From clothbound books to notebooks, typed sheets, printouts, and computer files and sophisticated software made by the likes of Tally, Intuit, Oracle, and SAP, we have come a long way in the way technology has changed bookkeeping. But two things have not changed: the concept of keeping accounts, and the importance of trust.
As AI and a fresh wave of technologies sweep the planet, it is wise to keep an eye on what won't change - and what you are and you can do at the core of it all.
Amazon's Layoofs, Nvidia's Record Market Cap
Amazon led a global wave of layoffs last week, deeply worrying 'techies' - the moniker given to an assorted bunch of code writers, software developers, engineers, solutions architects, and a host of people like marketing folks and storytellers thriving around them. Contrast that with the fact that Nvidia, the company that makes the cutting-edge microchips that power AI-driving data centres, hit a world-beating market capitalisation of $5 trillion. That's Rs 440 lakh crore, compared with about Rs 20 lakh crore for India's most valued company, Reliance Industries.
As that happened, Sam Altman, a key leader in the software part of the AI race, said his OpenAI, associated with Microsoft, was committed to developing 30 gigawatts of computing resources for $1.4 trillion.
Those financial figures linked to the hardware part of the AI revolution contrast sharply with news of layoffs. An estimated 1,72,000 layoffs have been announced in America over the past month, with Amazon slashing 14,000 jobs and Facebook-owner Meta 8,000. Automation, especially that linked to AI, is seen to be a major axe driver. Earlier months saw Microsoft, Salesforce and Google announcing layoffs in various shapes and sizes.
What Huang Said About 'Electricians'
It is possible now to present a dystopian future in which Nvidia-powered data centres and OpenAI-generated software pieces replace writers, editors, programmers, customer support staff and accountants. In a tragic and yet comic projection, Nvidia's CEO Jensen Huang said last month that skilled workers like electricians and plumbers will be in high demand as data centres for AI grow in size and number.
Whether his words are dystopian or Utopian depends on which side of the AI revolution you are on. But it is clear to me as a long-time technology watcher that both greed-fuelled growth and employment-linked fears may be overstretched because it takes time, processes, and new skills to scale up a new revolution.
No boom is useful if your skills do not match up, and any boom is good if you can reinvent yourself, building on what you can do and adapting to a new environment. The transition is the tough part, and here is where a self-audit as well as basic human attitudes like a willingness to learn, teamwork and humility, might help. Avoiding unrealistic loans or having extravagant spending might take away what I call the transition cushion that techies could do with.
A Mix Of Skills
Beyond that, there is the comforting fact that AI itself may require plumbing - not the data centre kind that Huang speaks of. "Agentic AI", in which intermediate pieces of technology enable efficient automation, requires a mix of skills that blend software with the ability to generate code using AI, or knowledge of industry or customer-specific details. Small language models are like interpreters at a tourist spot, helping adapt large language models like OpenAI's GPT and Google's Gemini.
Also, there is the basic economics of supply and demand. When something becomes easier to generate, it is consumed and used - and misused or abused - in larger quantities. As demand for AI products grows and new variations of AI tools get developed (picture it similar to the excess of Instagram videos and Facebook posts), there will be a need to sift, sort and secure the new environment. Cybersecurity is growing in importance as deepfakes helped by AI penetrate. Imagine it like a city in which as citizens multiply in number, both traffic police and coffee shops need to grow.
What we are about to witness is a chaotic wave of growth, with pains along the way.
Remember Naya Daur? It's Here
The Hindi movie Naya Daur (New Age) made in 1957 by BR Chopra and starring Dilip Kumar features an electric saw that hurts the livelihoods of woodcutters at an old-fashioned mill. There are lessons to be drawn from that film about the introduction of a new technology and resistance to it. Ironically, the word film itself sounds out of place in the age of digitally stored cinema being watched at home on broadband connections, even as large-screen multiplexes struggle to reinvent themselves.
Technology keeps changing, but the good news is that time may be on the side of those who fear change. Amara's Law, coined by futurist Roy Amara, suggests that people tend to overestimate the short-term impact of a new technology while underestimating its long-term effects. Consider the idea that even now, there are villages on the planet that are not electrified, although electrification dates back to the 1880s.
As I see it, AI involves key elements of human behaviour, trust/mistrust, opportunities and fears, and each of these involve work or jobs that involve helping people move forward as well as protecting people from the fears generated by the new technology. Remember, railways produced tracks and coaches, but it also gave rise to engine drivers and level-crossing guards.
What matters most for the average techie is to find how to be above average, and mix the right attitude with one's core aptitude - and keep some reserves ready to surf the change. Trustworthiness, the thing Sitaram Kesri was famous for in the pre-computer era, will remain a key asset. After all, AI is not human, but we are.
(Madhavan Narayanan is a senior editor, writer and columnist with more than 30 years of experience, having worked for Reuters, The Economic Times, Business Standard, and Hindustan Times after starting out in the Times of India Group.)
Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author
