Source : INDIA TODAY NEWS
Is AI taking away jobs? No one has a straight answer to that question. But artificial intelligence is certainly being blamed for the ongoing restructuring and job losses, as companies automate tasks that were previously handled by humans. For the younger generation, the fear goes even deeper, with concerns that AI could make it harder to find jobs and build careers in the future. However, according to Infosys cofounder Kris Gopalakrishnan, there is no need to fear. He believes AI could actually create more jobs than it takes away.
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Gopalakrishnan’s comments on AI creating new jobs came in response to a viral video featuring AI pioneer Geoffrey Hinton. In the video, Hinton discusses how one of his earlier predictions about AI and radiologists did not turn out as expected. Hinton had predicted that AI would largely replace radiologists, but the technology has instead been used to make medical imaging faster and more affordable, while demand for the service has continued to grow.
“Seeing this in other areas too. AI is creating more jobs than we lose to AI,” Gopalakrishnan wrote in his post on X.
What did Geoffrey Hinton predict?
In 2016, Hinton predicted that people should probably not train to become radiologists because AI would soon become better at reading medical scans. His prediction was that, within about five years, radiologists would no longer be reading scans. A decade later, that has clearly not happened.
But Hinton now says his prediction was “way early”, not completely wrong. He says he did not consider that cheaper and faster AI-powered scans could lead to more scans being done. So, instead of hospitals simply needing fewer radiologists, the demand for radiology services has now grown due to AI.
“So, a fraction of the cost of a significant fraction of the cost of doing a scan is the cost of the radiologist interpreting it. As AI gets to help more and more radiologists interpret scans, we can interpret them faster and faster for less and less money. They’re getting more efficient and you would have thought that would mean you needed less radiologists, but actually what it means is you get more scans,”he said during his appearance on the Big Technology Podcast.
Hinton also says he had underestimated what radiologists actually do. At the time of his prediction, his understanding of the profession was largely based on a former student who mainly interpreted scans and did not interact much with patients. But radiologists have other responsibilities too, including discussing treatment with patients. So, AI replacing one part of their work does not necessarily mean replacing the entire profession.
Hinton still believes AI will eventually do most of the work of reading scans. “I still think in terms of reading scans that’ll be done more and more by AI and in the end AI will be reading nearly all the scans,” he said. However, he added that radiologists will continue to perform other tasks and may still be consulted in particularly difficult cases.
And this is where Infosys cofounder Gopalakrishnan is making his point. He agrees with Hinton that AI can take over a particular task while overall demand for that service continues to grow. He suggests that not just radiology but AI is also bringing more opportunities in other fields.
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SOURCE :- TIMES OF INDIA
