Zoho co-founder Sridhar Vembu on Friday commented on the traditional jobs that drive the world today and how artificial intelligence could affect them.
In a post on X, Vembu said that AI may pose a challenge to self-worth in some cases.
“If our notion of self-worth comes from the economic value we add, or if it comes our intellectual pretense (*cough*), AI may pose a serious challenge to our self-worth [sic],” he wrote.
The Zoho co-founder listed human activities that do not pay well but people still do. He argued that such jobs will remain unaffected by AI.
“On the other hand no one takes up activities like taking care of children, teaching children, taking care of the elderly, coming back to farming leaving a well paying job, going into the forest as rangers because they love the forest, local temple priests who do the daily rituals even when no one shows up at the temple, classical musicians who practise daily and perform for even very small crowds – none of them do it because those activities pay well,” he wrote.
“They will be unaffected by AI. Humanity may organize itself more towards such activity,” Vembu added.
Netizens debate AI’s impact on jobs
Vembu’s post sparked a serious discussion on X, as netizens debated on what the future of work might look like.
“The world is not perfect. Just look around and you’ll see how many things can be done better. Cities can be rebuilt. The new jobs will solve new problems for humanity, that we have had to live with because the alternative was not there or expensive [sic],” one person wrote.
Another commented that AI will help humans expand their wisdom. “AI will help humanity to do more philosophical work expanding the wisdom from the knowledge created by AI and non AI sources, while churning of information to knowledge will be left to agentic AI and mundane work to physical AI [sic].”
A third person commented on how AI might pose a challenge when it surpasses human intelligence. “We have managed to be on the top of the food chain because of our intelligence. Now we have built a peer that doesn’t sleep. The moment it efficiently surpasses the human, we are no longer the top of the food chain. We work for the machines [sic],” this person posted.
AI’s impact on jobs
Last year, thousands of jobs worldwide were eliminated, with companies like Amazon attributing their layoffs to the adoption of artificial intelligence. Most companies are replacing mundane daily work with AI.
On Thursday, Jack Dorsey-led Block announced mass layoffs, eliminating 40% or over 4,000 of its employees. Dorsey attributed this to the use of technology as Block goes on to make sizeable AI investments.
Experts have also warned of the imminent challenges AI may pose in terms of jobs.
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon recently warned that the government needs to start preparing to handle the labour disruption AI could bring.
“I’m not predicting [it] can be a problem. I’m simply saying now’s the time to start thinking about what you do if it does,” Dimon said.