India's outsourced coders face job extinction by 2025 due to AI advancements

[midian182]

A hot potato: Generative AI is expected to have a huge impact on the global workforce, where it is predicted to replace humans in a large percentage of jobs. According to Emad Mostaque, CEO of Stability AI, few places will be hit as hard as India's outsourced coders, most of whom will see their jobs wiped out by 2025.

Speaking in a call with analysts from Swiss investment bank UBS, Mostaque said outsourced coders up to level three programmers in India will be gone in the next year or two. He believes AI will allow software to be developed with far fewer people, negating the need for outsourcing.

The Stability AI boss thinks AI will impact different types of jobs in different ways. "If you're doing a job in front of a computer, and no one ever sees you, then it's massively impactful, because these models are like really talented grads," he said.

Mostaque added that how much your job might be at risk from AI depends on where you live. Indian jobs are more under threat as the country doesn't have labor laws as strong as France, for example. Mostaque says "you'll never fire a developer" in the European nation.

"So it affects different models in different countries in different ways in different sectors."

Mostaque made similar claims about AI last month on the Moonshots and Mindsets podcast, where he said it would replace most programmers in five years, though he later amended that statement to say it specifically referred to traditional coders.

Bloomberg writes that no single country will be more impacted by generative AI than India, home to 5 million coders. Outsourcing companies count the likes of Wall Street banks, tech giants, airlines, and retailers among their customers, but workers in the industry face an unprecedented threat from ChatGPT and similar tools.

The COO of Tata Consultancy Services, Asia's largest outsourcer, said generative artificial intelligence and ChatGPT start and dominate every client conversation.

It's not just coders in India under threat. Last week brought news of Suumit Shah, CEO and founder of Bengaluru-based Duukan, boasting on Twitter about the brilliant new chatbot that had replaced 90% of the company's support staff.

IBM is just one company to confirm it intends to stop hiring for jobs that could potentially be performed by generative artificial intelligence, which is expected to impact 300 million full-time jobs globally. Stress and anxiety over job losses caused by AI have led to 80% of tech workers using medications, either under a doctor's supervision or otherwise, as a coping mechanism. Heavy alcohol consumption is also becoming commonplace.

Stability AI recently unveiled Stable Doodle, a new tool that can generate some impressive-looking artwork based on your own illegible scribbles.

Masthead: Wikkimedia commons

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https://www.techspot.com/news/99467-india-outsourced-coders-face-job-extinction-2025-due.html

 

[VitalyT]

The world will see a crime wave like never before, created by desperate people, unable to find a job to feed themselves, thanks to the AI. The higher unemployment, the higher the chaos. That's what ChatGPT and alike are really bringing.

 

[RudyBob]

So that's where they sit

 

[mbk34]

I guess Indian offshore teams have been taking jobs from programmers all around the world for the past 30 years. Perhaps it's just karma?

 

[michalcz]

India is facing a huge challenge, there is a population boom but the economy is not strong enough for everyone to get a decent job. I feel like we can expect more desperate scammers to pop up, unfortunately.

 

[wiyosaya]

If the code from AI is anything like the "support" I get from AI bots at places like Amazon and others, I don't think Indian coders have anything to worry about.

But if the code from AI bots is anything like the Tech Support in this parody, then maybe:

 

[sorten]

"Stress and anxiety over job losses caused by AI have led to 80% of tech workers using medications, either under a doctor's supervision or otherwise, as coping a mechanism. Heavy alcohol consumption is also becoming commonplace"

That's a ridiculous statement. There's no way 80% of tech workers are medicating as a result of worries about AI, and your linked survey of 500 tech executives isn't evidence. Most software engineers that I know are using ChatGPT and the like to speed up menial tasks.

It's also worth noting that the term "coders" is a derogatory term and doesn't represent the role of a modern software developer or engineer today. Software developers spend less than half of their time "coding," while the rest involves tasks such as requirements gathering from stakeholders, designing, testing, and other related tasks. It's going to be a while before a product owner can sit down with a chatbot and get a fully functional and supported application with a series of prompts.

 

[Julnor]

There's going to be a really bad transition period economically. It might end up better after it, same way machines and vehicles freed people up, but it's going to be hard until a new model is established. I'm old so...I don't know how much it matters for me personally. It's going to be more problematic for younger people.

 

[wiyosaya]

There's going to be a really bad transition period economically. It might end up better after it, same way machines and vehicles freed people up, but it's going to be hard until a new model is established. I'm old so...I don't know how much it matters for me personally. It's going to be more problematic for younger people.

Maybe.

I think what shape it takes remains to be seen. AI use is a new model, and how it will transform society remains to be seen. As the article notes, there have been predictions about how various technical advancements have wrought predictions of vast changes that never materialized. As I see it, no one, even "experts," will be able to predict the ultimate shape of AI in society.

As I see it, predictions like these are just pie-in-the-sky phantoms lofted into the mainstream for the attention such predictions garner.

 

[brucek]

I'm old enough to have started developing software when there where was little to no electronic assist of any kind. In the decades since, the ecosystem of tools, libraries, workflow automation, and everything else around the act of deploying a working application has gotten massively better. Still, even as individual developer productivity has skyrocketed in relative terms, my sense is the scope & amount of work to be done, as well as the total number of working developers, has only grown ever larger.

I hope ChatGPT is one day as significant a productivity boost as some of these other items. It sure hasn't been so far for me. If it ever is, I suspect it'll play out like all the others: just increase the expectation for what can be accomplished, not ever reach the bottom of user demand for more products & services.

 

[trents]

Well maybe the AI tech support agents will not have international accents and finally be understandable to native English speakers.

 

[Wye43]

The guy selling potatoes(Stability AI) says that potatoes will be successful. More news at 11.

 

[LeroN]

India's outsourced coders washed off american and european coders -> american and european coders strike back with AI and wash off indian coders. Why to worry?