Shark Tank India judge Anupam Mittal warns India against blind AI push: 'Jobs first, deep-tech later'
Shaadi.com founder and
Shark Tank India
judge
Anupam Mittal
has started an important conversation around India's AI ambitions. In a lengthy LinkedIn post, Mittal has advised caution against the tech-first approach which overlooks the employment realities of the country. Mittal has also criticised the blind adoption of
deep-tech
narratives and warned that India's present skilling infrastructure is 'dangerously out of sync' with its lofty AI goals.
Anupam Mittal warns India against blind AI push
Mittal's LinkedIn post featured a photo of an elderly woman wearing a BlinkIt delivery jacket with a caption, 'Maybe she should learn Python. Perhaps she can fine-tune an LLM too, while delivering your groceries.' This remark made by Mittal reveal the disconnect between elite tech discourse and the lived experiences of India's gig workers.
Mittal also argues that AI-driven automation is transforming tech giants like Microsoft, Meta and Google, but India still lacks the formal emlpyment and reskilling budgets required to keep pace. 'India is not there yet,' Mittal wrote, noting that most of the workforce is self-employed and lacks access to real-time upskilling.
Read Shark Tank India judge Anupam Mittal's complete LinkedIn post here
Saw this woman the other day, and thought maybe she should learn Python 🤷♀️
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Perhaps she can fine-tune an LLM too, while delivering your groceries 😏
Every time I say India needs jobs along with deep-tech, someone sends me a whitepaper on
AI skilling
. Basically parroting the west without understanding our own reality.
Of course, AI replacement and automation is happening at the top cos in the world including Microsoft, Meta, Google. Their CEOs are on record: 40–50% of work processes will be AI-driven in 2–3 years.
Yes, true!
But those are economies with lower populations, high formal employment, and deep reskilling budgets.
When I worked in the US, every time a new tech or software rolled out, we were upskilled in real time not just as individuals, but across the entire org.
That's what real skilling infrastructure looks like.
India is not there yet ❌ given most are self-employed.
Ergo, the gig economy has been a blessing for us. It enabled employment for millions. In a country 🇮🇳 holding ~20% of the world's population, that's no mean feat!
When we start touting deep-tech as the only solution to all our problems, we endanger the livelihoods of a billion plus nation.
Yes, we have highly-skilled and super-talented folks who will undoubtedly build future big-tech from India but we also have a large low-skilled populace that needs to be taken along.
India needs to address both these issues simultaneously, no?
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