Stability AI CEO Says Most Coders in India Will Lose Jobs Within a Year or Two

Robert Carnevale
Tue, July 18, 2023


Indian coders’ days are numbered, the CEO of Stability AI Emad Mostaque says. Based on his estimate, most outsourced coders in the country will be out of a job within a year or two as artificial intelligence allows for far greater work to be done by fewer people. That reality coupled with the nation lacking the protective labor laws of certain other countries means Indian coders are likely to be in a tricky situation relatively soon.

Mostaque highlighted the impact AI will have on coders Level 3 and under, citing their skill level and type of job as being key reasons why artificial intelligence is coming for them specifically. “If you’re doing a job in front of a computer, and no one ever sees you, then [AI is] massively impactful, because these models are like really talented grads,” Mostaque said, sharing his thoughts in a call with UBS analysts, as reported by CNBC.

Meanwhile, Mostaque acknowledged that countries with heavily pro-worker labor laws, like France, will not see these sorts of shakeups since the workers are legally protected from such situations. With that said, he still predicted that there will be no more traditional coders in five years’ time.

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Reps for Stability AI told TheWrap they had nothing to further to add to CNBC’s report.

Stability’s CEO isn’t the only one feeling that artificial intelligence is the wave of the future and could disrupt certain sectors. Disney CEO Bob Iger is also bullish on AI and has his legal teams working overtime to figure out how they can effectively incorporate artificial intelligence into Disney’s operations.

Furthermore, the CEO of U.K. energy supplier Octopus Energy, Greg Jackson, has been incorporating AI into his company’s customer service department and it’s been doing the jobs of hundreds of employees all with better customer satisfaction rankings than the company’s human workers. While layoffs were not likely for Octopus Energy’s staff as a result of AI’s successes, that may not be the case for workers of other companies, as evidenced by Mostaque’s forecast for Indian coders.

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A top AI expert says most outsourced coders in India will be out of a job in 2 years thanks to the technology


Kai Xiang Teo
Tue, July 18, 2023 


Stability AI CEO Emad Mostaque thinks AI will eliminate most outsourced coding jobs in India.


This isn't the first time he made such a bold call.


He previously said AI would make most programmers obsolete in 5 years.

AI will soon eliminate most outsourced coding jobs in India as the technology will drastically reduce the need for them, according to a leading AI expert.

India's "outsourced coders up to level three programmers will be gone in the next year or two, whereas in France, you'll never fire a developer," Emad Mostaque, the CEO of Stability AI, said in a call with UBS analysts, attributing these differences to better workers' protections in France.

The comments were reported by CNBC on Tuesday.

There are about five million coders based in India, according to an April 17 Bloomberg report.

This isn't Mostaque's first bold claim about AI. In an interview on the Moonshots and Mindsets podcast posted on June 29, Mostaque — whose company created Stable Diffusion, a tool that transforms text into AI-generated art — predicted AI could replace most programmers in five years.

He later caveated his comment saying he was specifically referring to traditional coders.

Tech jobs are one of the professions most likely to be replaced by AI, Insider's Aaron Mok and Jacob Zinkula previously reported.

But not everyone shares Mostaque's pessimism.

GitHub's CEO Thomas Dohnke told Computer Weekly last year that AI could help developers be more productive. "It's so much more attractive to have an AI assistant with you, instead of reading stacks of books or wiki articles."

Additionally, workers with AI skills stand to gain as the tech industry is placing a greater focus on talent in this area, Insider's Thomas Maxwell reported.

Emad Mostaque did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider.