Economic Survey flags AI’s ‘deleterious impact’ on jobs, ‘pall of uncertainty’ for workers across skill segments in India

Artificial intelligence (AI) could cast a “huge pall of uncertainty” on workers across skill segments in India, with those working in more backend operations such as business processing outsourcing (BPO) under the most amount of threat, the Economic Survey 2023-24 has said. The Survey also questions the climate impact of AI, which needs a large amount of energy to run data centres around the clock.

This is perhaps the first time a government document has officially flagged the impact AI could have on jobs in India – while there is a veneer of pragmatism over the country’s general propensity towards embracing new technology and how the country’s start-up ecosystem could harness AI, the Economic Survey also draws a murky picture on how certain jobs in India could decline considerably in the next decade.