MD: Hi, I’m Meghna.

RT: And I’m Raj.

MD: Today, we’re joined by MVHS parent, Krishna Rupanagunta, who will debunk myths about AI’s impact on the workforce. 

RT: Can you give us a short description of your job?

KR: Databricks is a data and AI company. We build software that Fortune 500 companies use, and I’m part of the solutions team within Databricks, known as AI solutions. We’re trying to figure out how to take this AI platform and build solutions that a company like Walmart or Pepsi can use. 

RT: Is AI mostly accurate when it provides solutions to work-related problems?

KR: AI by definition is probabilistic. Every output that AI produces, there is room for error, so what we do is train the model with specific data so that it can produce a result that’s at a higher confidence level. So, whenever we use AI solutions, every answer comes with a confidence score. 

MD: Other than CS, are there any other work fields that are particularly impacted by how good AI is getting?

KR: EECS (Electrical Engineering and Computer Science) is getting a lot of bump. Now, because of this AI push, the hardware side has suddenly become extremely important. So people are trying to figure out better chips, better discs, data centers, faster computing and so on. So anybody who’s majoring in EECS has a great future ahead of them.

RT: Are there any fields that are not impacted by AI as much? 

KR: I think physical trades. Trade schools, they won’t get that affected, but apart from that, I feel just about everybody will.

MD: Are there any other misconceptions that you’ve heard from people in your job or people in the workforce that you want to clear up? 

KR: No misconceptions, at least because I work in a tech company, and we are all in. But we see a lot of fear in the industry. So, again, if I talk to somebody in a Walmart or any of these regular companies, there is fear that jobs will go away and all that, which is a huge misconception in my mind. Everybody has to become a little smarter and learn the technology sooner or later, but it’s not that jobs are going to disappear.

MD: So, how do you think that jobs outside of the CS area would change?

KR: Let’s take an example. So, Walmart, you are a customer service rep in Walmart. Basically, your job is, to sit at the desk — any support calls that come in, you take. So on average, you take five calls in an hour. Now that same person, if they have an AI agent as their copilot, and if they’re able to ask that AI agent smartly, they will be able to do twice as many calls in an hour. So for that person, the individual has to have the training and the ability to ask AI the right kind of questions, and so on. 

MD: What would you tell people who are just entering the job market who carry the misconception that AI will completely take over their job of choice?

KR: I’m very tech-biased. I would say that everybody should embrace technology, number one. Number two is learn the heck out of this. If you aspire to be a writer, AI will do the basic writing jobs, so your basic ad copywriting, those kinds of simple writing jobs will be gone. But what you really need to think about is how do you become a really good writer using these AI tools. That’s the bottom line. This is a great tool, like the internet was, like the telephone was, or like machines were. How you use the tool is entirely up to you.

MD: Do you think AI’s intelligence will continue to get better, or will it ever plateau?

KR: So it will continue to get better. Right now, all the AI that we use is large language models, which are language-focused. But intelligence is much broader than that. So, there is, like you said, video processing. How do you interact with the physical world? The technology is still very, very, very nascent. The second thing is, we can learn to learn. We can take something specific, generalize it and use it in other contexts. AI is just not good at that. 

RT: Is there anything else you’d like to add about any more misconceptions, or just any other thoughts on how AI is impacting the workforce?

KR: Yeah, so I think there’s a lot of narrative out there, or fear around what AI will do. Some of it is real, some of it is misplaced. I say that it’s just simply another technology, so make the best out of it. In my mind, the opportunities down the line will be even greater, like the industrial revolution. For sure, when the machines first came, people lost jobs. Very soon, the ones who were able to retrain themselves had a much, much better life and much, much better jobs. I think the same thing is going to happen here, too.

MD: And that’s it for debunking myths about AI in the workforce with Mr. Rupanagunta. I’m Meghna.

RT: And I’m Raj. Thanks for listening!

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