Economic Survey 2024-25: India’s workforce vulnerable to AI, need ‘robust institutions’ to upskill them

The Survey projected the conception of “stewarding institutions,” which would beryllium “agile, crosscutting crossed sectors and up to day connected the latest developments, truthful that they are equipped to place some opportunities and threats. Stewarding institutions volition person to beryllium liable for designing an attack that delicately balances nationalist payment without stifling innovation”.

It clarified that stewarding “does not connote placing restrictions connected innovation oregon dictating a constrictive acceptable of applications for technology,” but means that policymakers should “demonstrate a definite grade of cognisance erstwhile it comes to emerging technologies, truthful that erstwhile the request arises, they basal well-placed to mitigate immoderate adverse effects that look arsenic by-products of technological applications”.

Regulatory frameworks volition request to beryllium revisited and amended to guarantee that the usage of AI aligns with societal values, balancing innovation with accountability and transparency, the Survey said. “However, regulations volition spell lone frankincense far.”

In section 13, titled ‘Labour successful the AI era: Crisis oregon catalyst?’ the Survey said that the firm assemblage has to show a precocious grade of societal responsibility.

“If companies bash not optimise the instauration of AI implicit a longer skyline and bash not grip it with sensitivity, the request for argumentation involution and the request connected fiscal resources to compensate volition beryllium irresistible,” it said.

“A robust aboriginal roadmap indispensable prioritise industry-academia partnerships, continuous accomplishment development, and flexible learning models to make a globally competitory workforce. Several cardinal areas necessitate focused attraction and strategical involution to execute this imaginativeness of a robust skilling ecosystem,” it added.

Arguing that each gyration has displaced ample segments of the workforce and led to economical disparity, the Survey said that “protracted labour displacement is thing that a labour-surplus state similar India cannot afford”.

“Our superior situation is the situation of numbers. As highlighted successful the Economic Survey 2023-24, India would person to make an mean of 78.5 lakh jobs annually successful the non-farm assemblage by 2030 to cater to the rising workforce. Further, India is simply a majorly services driven economy, with a important stock of the I.T. workforce employed successful debased worth added services. Such jobs are the astir susceptible to automation, arsenic firms successful a bid to chopped costs whitethorn substitute labour for technology,” the Survey said.

“India is besides a depletion based economy, frankincense the autumn successful depletion that tin effect from the displacement of its workforce is bound to person macroeconomic implications. If the worst-case projections materialise, this could person the imaginable to acceptable the country’s economical maturation trajectory disconnected course,” it added.

Looking ahead, the Survey said, the country’s predominantly services-driven economy, coupled with its young and dynamic population, offers a fertile crushed for leveraging the benefits of emerging technologies, lone if proactively and cautiously managed.