Artificial intelligence (AI) is more likely to transform individual tasks than eliminate entire jobs, with its impact on employment in India depending on adoption costs, the nature of work and how organisations restructure roles, according to a white paper by researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras.
The paper argues that AI’s ability to perform certain tasks does not necessarily mean the jobs involving them will disappear. Instead, the technology could help workers perform tasks more efficiently, reshape existing roles, create new occupations or displace employees in some sectors.
Titled How AI Is Reconfiguring Work in India: A Task-Based Framework for Understanding Augmentation, Displacement, New Roles and the Changing Structure of Jobs, the white paper has been prepared by researchers at the Centre for Responsible AI (CeRAI), an interdisciplinary research group at the Wadhwani School of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, IIT Madras.
“This paper challenges the idea that AI always takes away jobs. Most jobs have tasks and only some of those can be undertaken by AI. The effect depends on the tasks, the industry, rules for AI and how much it costs to use AI. We also looked at who gains from these changes and who is affected,” said Prof Balaraman Ravindran, head of CeRAI and the Wadhwani School of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence.
The researchers examine AI’s impact at four levels: tasks, jobs, occupations and broader labour-market outcomes. The paper identifies two broad models of human-AI collaboration. In one, AI performs most tasks while humans check its output. In the other, people retain decision-making responsibilities and use AI to assist their work.
The study also highlights the role of adoption costs in determining how widely AI is used across India. Affordable, task-specific tools could spread quickly in business process outsourcing, bookkeeping and quality-control operations, including in smaller businesses. By contrast, applications requiring advanced AI capabilities, such as legal analysis and medical-image interpretation, could remain concentrated in larger companies and urban centres with better infrastructure and specialised skills.
The researchers caution against drawing conclusions about entire professions based solely on AI’s ability to perform individual tasks. They argue that the consequences for employment depend on several factors, including the technology’s capabilities, cost, regulation, safety and how employers choose to reorganise work.
“Most discussion of AI and jobs jumps straight from what AI can do on a single task to sweeping claims about entire professions. Our framework separates four levels within the profession — the task, the job, the occupation and the wider labour-market outcome. Seen this way, AI taking over a task does not automatically mean a job disappears,” said Dr Gokul S Krishnan, research director at CeRAI.
“Whether it leads to augmentation, redesign or displacement depends on cost, capability, regulation, safety and how organisations choose to restructure work,” he added.
