Invoice Gates predicts a future the place AI slashes the workweek to simply three days. However in India, that very same future might imply smaller paychecks, overcrowded job markets, and deeper inequality, warns Malaysia-based CXO Sanjiva Jha.
In a LinkedIn submit, Jha breaks down how AI’s promise of work-life steadiness might not land equally throughout borders—or social courses.
“Except you personal fairness, knowledge, or IP, you’ll doubtless earn much less,” he wrote. Whereas Gates envisions a world the place AI frees employees for extra inventive or strategic duties, Jha argues that, in India, AI is extra more likely to speed up job fragmentation and earnings disparity.
He lays out three key dangers. First, fewer workdays might merely imply much less earnings for many white-collar employees. “AI makes work quicker, not essentially fairer,” he famous, particularly for these with out asset possession.
Second, low digital entry might deepen the rural-urban divide. City elites who study to make use of AI will surge forward, Jha warned, whereas rural and under-skilled employees could also be pushed into gig-style duties—helping AI techniques for little pay and no safety.
However Jha’s most placing level is about what he calls “white-collar overcrowding.” India’s huge pool of degree-holding youth—engineers, MBAs, and graduates—might flood into low-barrier, AI-assisted roles like content material moderation, immediate engineering, or fundamental coding. The consequence? Extra employees competing for fewer jobs, and falling wages even for expert digital labor.
“AI would possibly decrease stress and hours,” Jha admitted. “However principally for the tech-literate higher class.”
To stop what he calls a “class conflict in code,” Jha urges instant coverage concentrate on digital upskilling, training reform, and labor safety designed for the AI age. “The contrasts between India, Southeast Asia, and the worldwide West make this transition value watching intently,” he wrote.
