SECTION B
Essay
125 marks
Rise of Artificial Intelligence: the threat of jobless future or better job opportunities through reskilling and upskilling.
WRITE IN
90 min
1,000–1,200 words
Reading the topic
The topic poses a choice between AI causing mass unemployment and AI creating better jobs if workers are reskilled. The examiner expects a balanced, India-specific essay on which tasks AI replaces, which it creates, and what policy, education and industry must do to tip the balance.
ThesisAI will not decide India's job future on its own; the outcome depends on whether the country invests fast enough in skills, social protection and responsible adoption.
Dimensions to cover
- 1Economy: AI automates routine tasks in services, back offices and manufacturing, while raising productivity and creating new roles
- 2India-specific: a large IT services and BPO workforce faces disruption, but a young population can be trained for AI-linked work
- 3Education: schools and universities must shift from rote learning to problem-solving and digital skills
- 4Social protection: workers displaced mid-career need income support and retraining
- 5Ethics and governance: bias, privacy and accountability in AI systems must be governed, including under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023
Counter-view
- Optimists argue every technological revolution created more jobs than it destroyed. The essay should note this pattern but warn that the transition can be painful and unequal unless managed
Open and close
- Open: Open with a call centre worker in Gurugram watching a chatbot handle queries she once answered, while her younger cousin trains to build and supervise such systems
- Close: Conclude that AI will be a threat to those left untrained and an opportunity to those prepared, so the policy choice is ours to make
Where marks usually go
- Choosing one side fully, either total doom or blind optimism, when the topic invites balance
- Writing a technical explainer on how AI works
- Ignoring India's informal workforce and writing only about IT professionals
Examples that fit
- HistoryLuddite textile workers in England smashed machines from 1811, fearing unemployment; mechanisation eventually created new jobs, but only after hardship.E.P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (1963)
- ThinkerJohn Maynard Keynes coined 'technological unemployment' in 1930, predicting machines would outpace our ability to find new uses for labour.J.M. Keynes, Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren (1930)
- DataThe World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs Report 2025 projected that, by 2030, technology and other trends would create about 170 million jobs and displace about 92 million.World Economic Forum, Future of Jobs Report 2025
- CurrentThe IndiaAI Mission, approved in March 2024, funds computing capacity, datasets and skilling to build domestic AI capability.Ministry of Electronics and IT, IndiaAI Mission