AI will spur new jobs, roles but may impact repetitive, commoditised tasks: Deloitte South Asia CEO

AI will spur new jobs, roles but may impact repetitive, commoditised tasks: Deloitte South Asia CEO

The advent of artificial intelligence (AI) will most certainly lead to the creation of new roles and jobs in the economy, although some of the current functions involving "repetitive" and "commoditised" tasks may be impacted, according to Deloitte South Asia CEO Romal Shetty.

In fact, more new jobs will be created than in the past given the transformative impact of AI, Shetty said and emphasised that human intervention and interface would still be key to optimising the full benefits of emerging technologies.

Shetty said that AI could affect jobs that are repetitive and commoditised but will yield more opportunities for companies and workers.

"...Where something is repetitive and commoditised, those jobs could be lost but will there be new jobs created, new roles created? Hundred per cent and absolutely," he said in an interaction with PTI editors at the agency's headquarters here.

Shetty said he sees AI as a huge opportunity rather than an absolute challenge.

A case in point could be air traffic control operations for drones, amid the increasing use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in different applications.

"Also, with electric vehicles coming in, the tire sound is significant. So they're looking at chemical composition of the tire using generative AI to say can 18 months of R&D be done in nine months now, and things like that. So there are different kinds of capabilities that are coming in with new things, with electric, with everything else," he said.

On the new regulations that are coming up in the area of emerging technologies, data and digital, Shetty asserted that regulations are important but should not stifle innovation.

"Data privacy will make it extremely difficult for certain sets of data to move out of the country, unless it is sovereign cloud or sovereign infrastructure. Most of these companies are global companies, so their systems are interconnected. So they will have to change their business model as well," he said, adding that regulations are important in ensuring fairness.

Business models of companies too will have to evolve in keeping with the new regulations.

"But we will have to be careful about regulations (not) stunting innovation and growth. We have to be careful about that but having said that regulatory is important because every country has its own sovereignty," he said.