Union Budget 2024 | AI to impact on Indian jobs across skill levels: Economic Survey

New Delhi: Artificial intelligence (AI) could cast a "huge pall of uncertainty" over workers across skill segments in India, said the Economic Survey.

The survey also cautioned that risk is high for back-end offices like the business processing office (BPO) sector, where GenAI is revolutionising the performance of routine cognitive tasks through chatbots. The survey said employment in the BPO sector is estimated to decline considerably in the next ten years.

Terming accelerated growth in AI as the biggest disruption for the future of work, the survey said India would not remain immune to this transformation. Given the vast demographic dividend and a very young population, India is uniquely positioned as AI poses both risk and opportunity, it said.

The survey also pointed out that hiring in the IT sector has slowed significantly in the last two years.

Referring to the big shifts playing out, the Economic Survey said "...the advent of AI casts a huge pall of uncertainty as to its impact on workers across all skill levels — low, semi and high. This will create barriers and hurdles to sustain high growth rates for India in the coming years and decades."

The survey said AI is being recognised as a general-purpose technology, like electricity and the internet.

"As AI systems continue to get smarter and adoption increases, the future of work will be reshaped. While AI has considerable potential for boosting productivity, it also has the potential to disrupt employment in certain sectors," it said.

Citing potential areas set for disruption, it said routine tasks, including customer service, will likely witness a high degree of automation; creative sectors will see extensive usage of AI tools for image and video creation; personalised AI tutors can reshape education and sectors like healthcare can witness accelerated drug discovery.

In the following decade, however, gradual diffusion of AI is expected to augment productivity.

Union Budget 2024 | Making a record for any Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman will be presenting her 7th Union Budget on July 23, 2024 under the Modi 3.0 government. While inflation has burnt a hole in the pockets of 'aam janata', will this Budget spell relief for Indians? Track the latest coverage, live news, in-depth opinions, and analysis only on Deccan Herald. Also follow us on WhatsApp, LinkedIn, X, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram.