New Delhi, March 15 (IANS). The impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is being blown out of proportion and white-collar jobs are not going to disappear in the next few years. This statement was given by former Governor of Reserve Bank of India Raghuram Rajan.
In a recent article published by Project Syndicate, he wrote that the pace of technology adoption, market competition and government policies will determine how this change will unfold.
“New technologies typically take longer than anticipated to spread across industries,” Rajan added.
“Except in a few areas like software, various challenges and resistance to change often slow down the adoption of new technologies,” he said.
To illustrate his point, Rajan cited the example of automated telephone exchanges, which took decades to completely replace human operators.
He argued that the widespread use of AI in many industries could face similar delays.
Rajan later shared his views in a post on LinkedIn, where he said that many predictions related to AI ignore the role of society and politics.
“Public opinion and political reactions will also determine how AI impacts jobs and the broader economy,” he said.
In his analysis, Rajan outlined several possible pathways to an AI-based economy.
In his outlook, Rajan said that some powerful AI platforms developed by companies like Anthropic and Meta Platforms could gain a strong technological edge and these companies could charge higher prices to businesses dependent on their AI systems.
If that happens, companies across various industries could use AI to automate many tasks and reduce the number of white-collar employees.
In such a situation, the employees who lose their jobs may go to service sectors like retail or hospitality, which may increase competition and reduce wages in these sectors.
Rajan also mentioned another possibility, in which multiple AI systems compete in the market.
“In such a scenario, productivity growth could spread more widely across the economy rather than being limited to a few companies,” he said.
–IANS
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