A message reading 'AI artificial intelligence'
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All revolutions are disruptive. They destroy the old order and create new winners and losers. The Industrial Revolution made Britain rich and powerful, while India was colonised and left behind. America rode the next two revolutions — electric power and computing — to dominate the 20th century. Today, China is racing ahead in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI).
India has a narrow window to seize this revolution. If we miss it, there will be no Viksit Bharat. But India is not a single monolith — it is a subcontinent. Our states are the real engines of progress. Karnataka, with a population equal to the UK’s and a proud record as the cradle of India’s IT success, must now lead again — this time as India’s AI lighthouse.
The AI hype — and the hard reality
We are in the middle of an AI bubble. Hype is ahead of reality; 95% of companies are still stuck in pilots. Yet, as Bill Gates once said, we overestimate the speed of change, but underestimate its ultimate impact. AI will, over time, reshape everything — every job, business, and institution.
Already, the tremors are visible. Amazon, Microsoft, TCS, Salesforce and others have announced tens of thousands of layoffs, often justified as “AI productivity gains”. Employment in IT services has flattened. Entry-level roles — the easiest to automate — are disappearing. Unless we act, AI could destroy more jobs than it creates in the next decade.
History offers a sobering parallel. When steam power arrived, it made Britain wealthy, but wrecked livelihoods for a generation. Child labour proliferated; life expectancy fell; Luddites smashed machines in despair. Only a century later did real wages and living standards rise. The lesson is clear: technological revolutions eventually lift societies — but the pain can last a lifetime for workers caught in transition.
Five ways work is being redefined:
Stable jobs are vanishing. Permanent employment is a relic. Opportunity will increasingly mean self-employment, freelancing, or entrepreneurship
Degrees matter less; skills matter more. Companies like Google and Palantir hire for demonstrated capability, not pedigree
The entry-level crisis. Fewer starter jobs mean fewer chances to learn by doing — an existential problem for youth employability
The three-stage life is over. We will live longer and must keep learning, earning and reinventing ourselves continuously
Adaptability is the new employability. Technical skills open doors, but adaptive skills — resilience, curiosity, collaboration — keep you inside
The new toolkit: Digital, entrepreneurial, human
To thrive in the AI age, Karnataka must build three bundles of capability.
1. Digital fluency: Every citizen must be able to use AI tools, interpret results, and exercise judgement online. Digital literacy is no longer just about using Word or Excel — it is about prompting effectively, spotting misinformation, and using chatbots to enhance productivity. Private-sector partnerships are essential; global firms have a vested interest in creating skilled users. Two decades ago, Microsoft’s Project Shiksha trained 800,000 teachers and reached 10 million children. We now need similar-scale initiatives with Microsoft, Google, OpenAI, Infosys and others.
2. Entrepreneurship as a life skill: Jobs will shrink, but opportunities will explode. Everyone must learn to think entrepreneurially — to spot problems and turn them into ventures, however small. Karnataka can lead by integrating entrepreneurship into every school, ITI and college curriculum. Through initiatives like GAME and Udyam Learning Foundation, over 1.5 million students in government schools already learn entrepreneurship experientially — starting micro-businesses and solving real problems. By 2030, every young person in the state should have such exposure.
3. Human skills: AI can write a marketing plan in minutes, but only a human can judge which idea fits context and lead teams to execute it. Communication, empathy, and leadership remain irreplaceable. As Nobel laureate Arno Penzias said: “If you don’t want to be replaced by a machine, stop acting like one.” Our education system still trains people to do what machines do better. We must teach what machines can’t —through humanities, arts, and community problem-solving. UNICEF’s Generation Unlimited showed how engaging youth to fix local issues builds confidence, empathy, and teamwork. Bengaluru-based ReapBenefit’s Solve Ninjas platform is doing this today: over 100,000 youth have implemented civic and climate solutions. Such programmes could be Karnataka’s modern-day NCC or NSS.
Helping workers through transitions
AI’s disruption will hit not just youth, but mid-career workers. Today, companies shed employees with a press release and no support. This “toothpaste-tube” mentality is unsustainable. Businesses must help people reskill and redeploy; otherwise, consumer demand and social stability will collapse.
We need a coalition of government, industry and civil society to design lifelines — apprenticeships for graduates, continuous learning platforms, and fair severance with career counselling. Microsoft’s Passport to Earning already provides micro-credentials in digital, financial, and entrepreneurial skills to over a million learners. Scaled partnerships with NASSCOM, CII and state agencies could make such lifelong learning universal.
Karnataka’s mission: AI for all
AI is not something to fear. Like fire or electricity, it is a tool. Whether it uplifts or destroys depends on how we use it. Karnataka can set the national template by launching an AI Skilling Mission — a partnership of bazaar, samaj, sarkar — to ensure every citizen, from a gig worker in Kalaburagi to a student in Kodagu, can harness AI.
If we do this, Karnataka will once again lead India into a new industrial age — an age not of machines replacing people, but of people empowered by machines.
(The writer is a chair of Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet (GEAPP) and a former chairman of Microsoft India)