New Delhi, March 16: Former Reserve Bank of India governor Raghuram Rajan has said fears that artificial intelligence could rapidly eliminate large numbers of white-collar jobs may be overstated.
In a commentary published by Project Syndicate, Rajan noted that the pace of technology adoption, market competition and government policies will ultimately determine how AI reshapes the labour market.
He argued that new technologies typically take longer to spread across industries than many forecasts suggest, pointing out that resistance to change and implementation challenges often slow adoption outside sectors such as software.
To illustrate, Rajan cited the example of automated telephone exchanges, which took decades to fully replace human operators, suggesting that a similar pattern could emerge with AI adoption across industries.
In a post on LinkedIn, Rajan added that public opinion and political responses will also influence how AI affects jobs and the broader economy.
He outlined potential scenarios for the AI-driven economy, including one where a few technology companies such as Anthropic and Meta Platforms dominate the development of advanced AI systems and charge high prices to businesses using their platforms.
Such a situation, he said, could encourage companies to automate more cognitive tasks and reduce white-collar employment, with displaced workers potentially moving into service sectors like retail or hospitality.
Rajan also highlighted an alternative scenario where multiple competing AI systems emerge, allowing productivity gains to spread more broadly across the economy rather than being concentrated among a few firms.
