BT India@100 Summit: ‘Skill transition is a major issue ahead of us’, says Oxford professor Soumitra Dutta on impact of AI on jobs

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has made many apprehensive about their jobs in the coming future. If this technology does create job losses across segments, how are they going to tackle it? In conversation with Kalli Purie, Vice Chairperson, India Today Group, Professor Soumitra Dutta, founding dean of Cornell Business School and currently dean of Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, talked about how AI can trigger the need for skill transition in the job market.

He believes that AI will definitely make transitions in job more acute and frequent. Explaining through an example, he said, “A lot of young lawyers go through cases and identify precedence and built questions but that can now be done by AI-based systems in lesser time and even more efficiently in some cases.” He added that sometimes when people want to move to a different segment that has vacancies, they will face huge social transition issues. He said, “These are the issues that private sector will grapple with and at the same time the governement has to step in and provide regulatory guidance, support for transition of skills. The skill transition is a major issue ahead of us."

He also talked about how AI can make jobs easier for many. He stated, “While I do think AI can make lives easier, but it will change things quite dramatically in some segments. It is up to us to decide how do you plan for these changes.”

Talking about AI regulations, Dutta stated, “The AI regulation is very important because we have to help technology use the technology in a responsible manner. Any technology can have positive and negative things. We as a society need to be oriented towards the positive side and be more careful of the negative side."

He also spoke about his major concern regarding not having a global AI regulation system. “My biggest concern with AI is that the world is getting split into two halves: American and Chinese. These two halves don’t talk, and their ability to talk is decreasing year by year. Chances of having a global system is decreasing because of this. If two major powerhouses of the world do not want to talk to each other or don’t want to agree to common norms or principles, it is a cause for concern.”

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