Zoho co-founder Sridhar Vembu on Friday weighed in about the traditional jobs that the world revolves around now and how artificial intelligence is going to affect them.
In a post on X, Vembu said that AI may pose challenge to self-worth in some cases.
“If our notion of self-worth comes from the economic value we add, or if it comes our intellectual pretense (*cough*), AI may pose a serious challenge to our self-worth,” he said.
However, the Zoho co-founder listed out human activities that do not pay well but people still do it. He said these are the jobs that will remain unaffected by AI.
“On the other hand no one takes up activities like taking care of children, teaching children, taking care of the elderly, coming back to farming leaving a well paying job, going into the forest as rangers because they love the forest, local temple priests who do the daily rituals even when no one shows up at the temple, classical musicians who practise daily and perform for even very small crowds – none of them do it because those activities pay well,” he said.
“They will be unaffected by AI. Humanity may organize itself more towards such activity,” Vembu added.
Netizens weigh in on impact of AI
Sridhar Vembu’s post sparked a serious discussion on X, as netizens weighed in on what the future of jobs might look like.
“The world is not perfect. Just look around and you’ll see how many things can be done better. Cities can be rebuilt. The new jobs will solve new problems for humanity, that we have had to live with because the alternative was not there or expensive,” one person said.
Another commented that AI will help humans expand their wisdom. “AI will help humanity to do more philosophical work expanding the wisdom from the knowledge created by AI and non AI sources, while churning of information to knowledge will be left to agentic AI and mundane work to physical AI.”
A third person commented on how AI might pose a challenge when it surpasses human intelligence.
“We have managed to be on the top of the food chain because of our intelligence. Now we have built a peer that doesn’t sleep. The moment it efficiently surpasses the human, we are no longer the top of the food chain. We work for the machines,” this person said.
AI’s impact on jobs
Last year, thousands of jobs across the world were eliminated, with companies like Amazon attributing their layoffs to accommodate artificial intelligence. Most companies are replacing the mundane work with AI.
On Thursday, Jack Dorsey-led Block announced mass layoffs, eliminating 40% or over 4,000 of its employees. Dorsey attributed this to the use of technology as Block goes on to make sizeable AI investments.
Experts have also warned about imminent challenges that AI may pose in terms of jobs.
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon recently warned that government need to start to prepare to handle the labour disruption AI could bring.
“I’m not predicting [it] can be a problem. I’m simply saying now’s the time to start thinking about what you do if it does,” Dimon warned.