The Efficiency Trap In AI
Sep 5, 2026 · 38 min · 14 segments
In this episode of TechUnhinged, host Rabia Javeed sits down with Charath Ranganathan…
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Sep 5, 2026 · 38 min · 14 segments
In this episode of TechUnhinged, host Rabia Javeed sits down with Charath Ranganathan…
Charath RanganathanGuest
Rabia JaveedHost
We see that many companies have announced half cuts after rolling out AI in customer service, back office operations and finance.
It's definitely a difficult time for many people in industry, right? So companies have announced huge job cuts.
In a long time, I think this is probably the first time that these job cuts have affected sort of what you would consider to be, you know, the knowledge worker, right? And it's pretty significant.
And I think for those who are not impacted, there's a lot of questions about how long am I going to be around, right? So there is that.
Now, that being said, what I think will happen is that there is some initial euphoria almost that generative AI is going to replace all of these jobs.
What it has replaced, so it may have replaced the physical act of doing something, right? So maybe it's replaced the act of coding.
So the point is that generative AI has replaced some of these acts, but not the discipline itself.
And I think what will end up happening is you will actually find that over time i suspect some of these jobs will come back or they will they will change the level of abstraction at which people are working right that's what i think is going to happen now how stable is this i don't know uh what we're really seeing i think or what i would i i think i am seeing is that generative AI is consolidating information and judgment in the hands of fewer people than we had before.
And I think that's actually going to come back to be a challenge for companies too, right? So it kind of goes both ways.
So there's a lot of euphoria that people are, that companies I think are looking at.
And, you know, we are finding that even companies are walking back some of this, right? Like if you look at companies like Microsoft sort of walking back their token maxing that they did and so on and so forth.
It impacts their daily sort of, you know, how they go about their lives.
And we also wait for companies to sort of fine tune where they think more humans are needed and where less humans are needed and i think that's going to be where abstraction we're all going to work at a higher level of abstraction than we have before
We see that many companies have announced half cuts after rolling out AI in customer service, back office operations and finance.
It's definitely a difficult time for many people in industry, right? So companies have announced huge job cuts.
In a long time, I think this is probably the first time that these job cuts have affected sort of what you would consider to be, you know, the knowledge worker, right? And it's pretty significant.
And I think for those who are not impacted, there's a lot of questions about how long am I going to be around, right? So there is that.
Now, that being said, what I think will happen is that there is some initial euphoria almost that generative AI is going to replace all of these jobs.
What it has replaced, so it may have replaced the physical act of doing something, right? So maybe it's replaced the act of coding.
So the point is that generative AI has replaced some of these acts, but not the discipline itself.
And I think what will end up happening is you will actually find that over time i suspect some of these jobs will come back or they will they will change the level of abstraction at which people are working right that's what i think is going to happen now how stable is this i don't know uh what we're really seeing i think or what i would i i think i am seeing is that generative AI is consolidating information and judgment in the hands of fewer people than we had before.
And I think that's actually going to come back to be a challenge for companies too, right? So it kind of goes both ways.
So there's a lot of euphoria that people are, that companies I think are looking at.
And, you know, we are finding that even companies are walking back some of this, right? Like if you look at companies like Microsoft sort of walking back their token maxing that they did and so on and so forth.
It impacts their daily sort of, you know, how they go about their lives.
And we also wait for companies to sort of fine tune where they think more humans are needed and where less humans are needed and i think that's going to be where abstraction we're all going to work at a higher level of abstraction than we have before
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