Zerodha CEO Nithin Kamath warns of AI job loss, but says ‘we won't fire’
Zerodha CEO Nithin Kamath expressed concern that companies will rely on AI to boost profits. He, however, committed to prevent AI job loss in his company.
Zerodha's founder and CEO, Nithin Kamath, has announced on Friday that the company will not lay off any employees due to the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI), despite his concerns that many positions may become unnecessary due to the technology. The announcement comes amidst mounting fears over job displacement and a spate of reports, including from Goldman Sachs, predicting widespread workforce replacement by AI.
"We will not fire anyone on the team just because we have implemented a new piece of technology that makes an earlier job redundant," Kamath tweeted, adding that their stance has shifted from 2021, when they hadn't found AI use cases, to now, when they believe AI will take away jobs and disrupt society. (ALSO READ | IBM to pause hiring in plan to replace 7,800 jobs with AI: Report)
In his tweet, Kamath said that the immediate risk of AI is that capitalistic and economic institutions would soon adopt it, resulting in increased inequality and loss of human agency.
"In today's capitalism, businesses prioritize shareholder value creation above stakeholders like employees, customers, vendors, the country, & the planet. Markets incentivize business leaders to prioritize profits over everything else; if not, shareholders vote them out."
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Recent advancements have made AI more powerful than ever before. This raises fears of widespread job loss. Approximately two-thirds of present occupations in the United States and the European Union are at risk of AI automation, a Goldman Sachs research says. The impact will have to be seen in few years, Mint reported.
The CEO of the brokerage firm says that many businesses would likely lay off staff and blame it on AI in order to generate more money and make their shareholders richer, increasing wealth disparity.
"This isn't a good outcome for humanity," Kamath tweeted, appealing with countries to enact rules. He does, however, add that no government would want to sit inactive while another gets more strong as a result of AI.
AI's diverse powers have grown so great that humans will be unable to compete with intelligent machines. Kamath stated that I had never done digital art before, yet it just took me a few seconds to make an artwork in the manner of Leonardo da Vinci.
