A hot potato: Generative AI is expected to have a huge impact on the global workforce, where it is predicted to replace humans in a large percentage of jobs. According to Emad Mostaque, CEO of Stability AI, few places will be hit as hard as India's outsourced coders, most of whom will see their jobs wiped out by 2025.
Speaking in a call with analysts from Swiss investment bank UBS, Mostaque said outsourced coders up to level three programmers in India will be gone in the next year or two. He believes AI will allow software to be developed with far fewer people, negating the need for outsourcing.
The Stability AI boss thinks AI will impact different types of jobs in different ways. "If you're doing a job in front of a computer, and no one ever sees you, then it's massively impactful, because these models are like really talented grads," he said.
Mostaque added that how much your job might be at risk from AI depends on where you live. Indian jobs are more under threat as the country doesn't have labor laws as strong as France, for example. Mostaque says "you'll never fire a developer" in the European nation.
"So it affects different models in different countries in different ways in different sectors."
Mostaque made similar claims about AI last month on the Moonshots and Mindsets podcast, where he said it would replace most programmers in five years, though he later amended that statement to say it specifically referred to traditional coders.
Bloomberg writes that no single country will be more impacted by generative AI than India, home to 5 million coders. Outsourcing companies count the likes of Wall Street banks, tech giants, airlines, and retailers among their customers, but workers in the industry face an unprecedented threat from ChatGPT and similar tools.
The COO of Tata Consultancy Services, Asia's largest outsourcer, said generative artificial intelligence and ChatGPT start and dominate every client conversation.
It's not just coders in India under threat. Last week brought news of Suumit Shah, CEO and founder of Bengaluru-based Duukan, boasting on Twitter about the brilliant new chatbot that had replaced 90% of the company's support staff.
IBM is just one company to confirm it intends to stop hiring for jobs that could potentially be performed by generative artificial intelligence, which is expected to impact 300 million full-time jobs globally. Stress and anxiety over job losses caused by AI have led to 80% of tech workers using medications, either under a doctor's supervision or otherwise, as a coping mechanism. Heavy alcohol consumption is also becoming commonplace.
Stability AI recently unveiled Stable Doodle, a new tool that can generate some impressive-looking artwork based on your own illegible scribbles.
