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I’m pretty worried about India. Pretty much all of our recent prosperity can be attributed to the tech sector. The bulk of this tech sector is outsourcing work,

by spaceman_2020 4y ago

I’m pretty worried about India. Pretty much all of our recent prosperity can be attributed to the tech sector. The bulk of this tech sector is outsourcing work, not high level architecture or design work. I can imagine this entire sector being hollowed out completely within a few years, destroying the entire middle class.

NineStarPoint 4y ago
I think too many companies have too much invested in their India teams for it to only take a few years for the sector to wind down. Short of some sort of calamity making it impossible for other counties to keep working with them, I suspect it would be a transition more over decades than years. (Even if AI is a looming issue, the sort of companies large enough to outsource are also the companies that will take the longest to truly realize AIs potential in their own workflows) I’ve also worked with enough extremely skilled people out of India who were involved in architecture and design work that I think all the skill needed is present in the country for their own tech sector to sustain itself eventually. Now if the government and societal norms will allow that to actually come to fruition…less sure on that.
- spaceman_2020 4y ago
  The market will force their hand. If your competitor replaces its entire customer service with AI agents that talk like real people with an American accent (the tech is almost there) and reports lower costs and higher profits, you will have no choice but to follow along. India’s tech sector is almost entirely dominated by low paid, low skilled tech labor. TCS and Infosys combined employ over a million people. To give you an indication of the skill gap, a fresh college graduate who joins TCS usually gets $4,500-5,000 per year. Meanwhile a VC funded startup product company will usually pay $30-40,000 per year. I really don’t see how these $5k/year employees aren’t replaced by AI agents.
  - Uw7yTcf36gTc 4y ago
    i haven't seen it posted before, but i've noticed many (if not all) Checker's (Rally's for some) burger restaurants have automated drive-thru order taker. You speak what you want and can upgrade sizes and so on and I've never had it not get my order correct. Newer versions with the ChatGPT-like AI is definitely closer than people think. and Customer Service jobs are a very large amount of employment here and overseas. Bad for lots of people.
    - spaceman_2020 4y ago
      Altman did say that customer service jobs will likely be the first casualty. Voice AI is already close to human-like. Countries like Phillippines will suffer a lot. In India, the BPO industry alone employs over 4M people, and this is the first step towards middle-class for a lot of people. If this is taken away, I don't know what they will do.
nebula8804 4y ago
India at least seems to be attempting to homegrow multiple industries that the West typically specializes in (eg. Cars, heavy industry, tech at the lower levels of the stack). A country of their size with all that going for it probably wont be entirely screwed. I say this as someone whos parents came from Pakistan, at least you got some things going for you. I worry about the future of Pakistan: seems less certain...

NineStarPoint 4y ago

I think too many companies have too much invested in their India teams for it to only take a few years for the sector to wind down. Short of some sort of calamity making it impossible for other counties to keep working with them, I suspect it would be a transition more over decades than years. (Even if AI is a looming issue, the sort of companies large enough to outsource are also the companies that will take the longest to truly realize AIs potential in their own workflows) I’ve also worked with enough extremely skilled people out of India who were involved in architecture and design work that I think all the skill needed is present in the country for their own tech sector to sustain itself eventually. Now if the government and societal norms will allow that to actually come to fruition…less sure on that.

spaceman_2020 4y ago
The market will force their hand. If your competitor replaces its entire customer service with AI agents that talk like real people with an American accent (the tech is almost there) and reports lower costs and higher profits, you will have no choice but to follow along. India’s tech sector is almost entirely dominated by low paid, low skilled tech labor. TCS and Infosys combined employ over a million people. To give you an indication of the skill gap, a fresh college graduate who joins TCS usually gets $4,500-5,000 per year. Meanwhile a VC funded startup product company will usually pay $30-40,000 per year. I really don’t see how these $5k/year employees aren’t replaced by AI agents.
- Uw7yTcf36gTc 4y ago
  i haven't seen it posted before, but i've noticed many (if not all) Checker's (Rally's for some) burger restaurants have automated drive-thru order taker. You speak what you want and can upgrade sizes and so on and I've never had it not get my order correct. Newer versions with the ChatGPT-like AI is definitely closer than people think. and Customer Service jobs are a very large amount of employment here and overseas. Bad for lots of people.
  - spaceman_2020 4y ago
    Altman did say that customer service jobs will likely be the first casualty. Voice AI is already close to human-like. Countries like Phillippines will suffer a lot. In India, the BPO industry alone employs over 4M people, and this is the first step towards middle-class for a lot of people. If this is taken away, I don't know what they will do.

nebula8804 4y ago

India at least seems to be attempting to homegrow multiple industries that the West typically specializes in (eg. Cars, heavy industry, tech at the lower levels of the stack). A country of their size with all that going for it probably wont be entirely screwed. I say this as someone whos parents came from Pakistan, at least you got some things going for you. I worry about the future of Pakistan: seems less certain...