Yes, AI is coming for our jobs: It's the old story of new technology

This worry is exaggerated. Any such innovation usually creates new jobs while taking away others

- DEVINA MEHRA

AI is coming for your job." "Estimates are that 40 to 50% of white-collar jobs will lose out to AI." So blare headlines from everywhere. Do you know what it reminds me of? The first move towards computerization of Indian banking, which happened back in the 80s, when I was young but not too young to register the protests and strikes by the bank unions and officer associations. This was an initiative by Manmohan Singh when he was Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor, and the task force was headed by C. Rangarajan, who also went on to head RBI. The thin edge of the wedge was computerization of cheque clearing, which in earlier days could take weeks, with huge discrepancies and losses. And then, of course, one-by-one other banking operations were computerized.

A large part of what banking personnel used to do prior to this was maintaining records, tallying accounts, updating passbooks, physically dealing with customers, etc. On a static basis, it would have appeared that the bulk of banking jobs would disappear. But that is not quite how it has panned out, has it? Not only have banking jobs risen over the years, there have been many new categories of jobs within banking—from managing the digital customer experience to cyber security, besides the challenge of maintaining large integrated systems.