AI can threaten your self-worth, says Zoho founder Vembu
Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu says AI might mess with our sense of self-worth—especially if we tie it to our jobs or "intellectual" skills.
In a post on X, he pointed out that India is focusing on building smaller, resource- and energy-efficient, cost-effective AI models.
Economic value might be the problem
Vembu shared on X, "If our notion of self-worth comes from the economic value we add, or if it comes from our intellectual pretense (cough), AI may pose a serious challenge to our self-worth."
He thinks people who measure themselves by their work could feel threatened as AI gets better at what they do.
AI won't replace jobs driven by passion, purpose
According to Vembu, roles like caring for kids or elders, teaching, farming after switching from high-paid gigs, forest conservation work, temple priests doing daily rituals even without crowds, and classical musicians playing for small audiences are less likely to be replaced by AI.
These jobs run on passion and purpose—not just paychecks.
New kinds of work will emerge
Despite his concerns, Vembu is optimistic that AI will create new kinds of work—just like other tech shifts have in the past.
He also shared that Zoho is already seeing big productivity boosts by using AI in software development and expects this to spread across the company.