On Friday, February 17, we had a highly insightful session by Dr Arunabh Singh, the Director of Nehru World School, Ghaziabad. Dr Singh spoke about the impact of AI on jobs. He also shared his perspectives on education, the role of the teacher and how we should mould young minds.

About Dr Arunabh Singh

Dr Arunabh Singh is an alumnus of King’s College London and Hindu College - Delhi University. He is passionate about innovation, technology, entrepreneurship and igniting young minds. A proponent of the distributed leadership model, he firmly believes, “Technology may not replace teachers, but teachers who use technology effectively will replace those who don’t.” Dr Singh is the Co-Chair of FICCI ARISE for UP, a member of the School Standards Setting Committee under National Education Policy, India 2020, Cambridge South Asia Advisory Board and a British Council School Ambassador.

The impact of AI

It is difficult to be an expert on AI and predict accurately how it will evolve. Technology is indeed changing very fast. But it would be fair to say that we should focus on working with AI in symphony rather than look at or worry about it as an adversary. (This is a point which other speakers in the WiseViews series have also made.)

Humans have always been fascinated by technology and its uses. Technology has evolved and come a long way in the last few decades. Think of transistor radios, black and white televisions, colour televisions, phones, fax machines, pagers and cell phones. We have also seen the emergence of computers and the internet with slow speeds at first and now with very fast connections. There are people who have been through the pre Google days, then the arrival of Google and most recently Chat GPT.

Every time a new technology came, we were worried about job losses. (Recall the computerisation of the reservation system in the Railways.) But what we saw instead was the creation of more complex and skilled jobs. When the calculator, the first computing device to gain mass popularity arrived, accountants did not lose their jobs. They started doing more complex calculations. So it would be reasonable to state that many jobs will update with the arrival of new technologies.

The jobs at risk

The jobs most at risk are those which are routine and repetitive, where there is not much thinking or decision making involved. Data entry operators, customer service agents, retail store staff, clerical staff and certain kinds of financial analysts fall in this category. Those who are not learning much and are doing mundane jobs are the most vulnerable. Coming specifically to Chat GPT, the people most at risk are the content writers. But intelligent people (even among the content writers) will try to leverage Chat GPT to their advantage.

Jobs not at risk

Healthcare staff, teachers, creative people, counsellors, scientists and business leaders are less likely to lose their jobs. More generally, jobs which involve creativity, emotional intelligence, working with humans or leading them and complex problem solving are less at risk.

During the Q&A, Dr Singh added that AI can help humans to do better what they are already doing. But AI is unlikely to do what humans have not done yet.

Adoption of AI

The adoption of AI will proceed along a bell-shaped curve. There will be some early adopters and some who will take to it much later. The younger generation, the digital natives are more likely to harness AI more effectively. The internet took some time for adoption. Compared to Google, the adoption of Snapchat (sharing of photos) was faster and that of Chat GPT (knowledge acquisition) even faster. This is a hint that AI/ML will gain acceptance much faster.

During the Q&A, Dr Singh added that India is a diverse country. Parts of the country are living in the 19th century and others in the 21st century. Typewriters are still in use outside courts. People are still needed to write letters and drop them in the post box. Tesla may roll out self-driving cars but there is likely to be demand for drivers for a long time. That is why making long term forecasts for which jobs will go away and which will be in demand, is not easy.

New technologies like ChatGPT should not make us defensive. We should see how we can leverage them to our advantage. Dr Singh has been trying to orient his teachers on ChatGPT. Teachers in his school have tried to generate lesson plans (even in Urdu) using Chat GPT. While the output may not be perfect, it is possible to get a good initial draft on which more work can be done.

Technologies are also emerging which can check whether ChatGPT has been used by students while completing an assignment! Rather than worry about whether students will misuse ChatGPT, why not allow them to use it and maybe make them defend their answers in front of the class. Students on their part, instead of taking shortcuts while doing their assignments, can use ChatGPT to improve their knowledge of topics outside the curriculum.

As Dr Singh mentioned in the Q&A, while AI is trying to learn more and more and give better answers, we must get better at asking questions. That is the only way in which we can keep pace with AI.

Message for young people

Dr Singh’s message to young people: Dream big. Be brave. Stay hungry. Keep learning. But as he added during the Q&A, there is a difference between dreaming and aspiring. Dreaming alone is not enough. We must put our heart and soul into what we are dreaming about. Otherwise, the dream will not be realized.

While learning, we should try to go beyond our comfort zone. Dr Singh took the example of Steve Jobs who learnt calligraphy though it was an offbeat subject. But later it helped him to design elegant fonts when the Macintosh was being developed.

Q&A