Arvind Srinivas, the Indian-origin CEO of Perplexity AI, was embroiled in a major controversy when he defended AI-triggered layoffs and said that people don’t love their jobs anyway. In a podcast, Srinivas, who studied at IIT-Madras and then did his PhD from UC Berkeley, said that job losses will open many new doors giving people new opportunities where they will get a chance to do what they love. “The reality is that most people don’t enjoy their jobs. Suddenly there’s a new possibility… to use these tools, learn them, and start your own small business… even if there’s temporary job displacement to deal with, that’s the kind of wonderful future we should look forward to,” Srinivas said, which makes layoffs seem desirable. The comment was strongly criticized as social media users called for his deportation. The comment gained significance as Oracle laid off 30,000 people worldwide and people have been lamenting on social media how they were duped and informed by an email at 6 in the morning that March 31 was their last day of work after working at Oracle for decades. A commenter wrote onThere was a nervous reaction to the controversy and a spokesperson referred the New York Post to data that defends what Srinivas said. “Since Perplexity launched in December 2022, Americans have filed 16 million new business applications, contributing to reversing a 40-year decline and proving once again that breakthrough technologies don’t eliminate opportunity, they create it,” the spokesperson said. “When you’re at the helm of building AI, disruption looks like opportunity. For millions of workers facing real uncertainty, the scene is very different from the ground. Are these artificial tech leaders – predicting grand futures for humans while detached from everyday impacts – out of touch? Or are they seeing something that others have yet to confront?” One wrote.
