We need to find answers: Sridhar Vembu raises AI ‘wiping’ jobs question

Zoho co-founder Sridhar Vembu has expressed concerns about artificial intelligence potentially leading to mass job loss in India. In a recent social media post, Vembu warned that the nation must urgently address the challenge of creating jobs for its large youth population amid an uncertain global landscape. He noted that while the IT industry, including Zoho, has not generated significant new employment in recent years, the focus has shifted towards AI development and rising data center costs, driven by soaring server and memory prices.

Vembu argued that although AI enables faster software production, it raises questions about whether the saturated global software market really needs more software. The CEO of Zoho admitted that the company is not expanding its workforce and that money previously allocated to new employees is now being spent on AI and infrastructure.

Vembu suggested that Universal Basic Income (UBI) could be a potential solution to the income inequality caused by automation. He pointed to Sam Altman's $14 million investment into UBI research and noted that some UBI initiatives are already underway in India. However, Vembu also acknowledged the complexity of the issue and the lack of a clear solution, emphasizing that making goods affordable through automation is only part of the challenge, as people must also have income to purchase them.