AI Is Changing Jobs. Innovation Doesn't Guarantee Jobs. Are We Changing Education? What Is Left for Humans?

Dear Friends,

Yesterday, I was invited by Ratan Tata Innovation Hub (RTIH) to address educators on Design Thinking for Problem Solving. There were around 80 participants, including Deans (R&D), Professors, Innovation Council members, etc.

One of the interesting questions was, "We were unable to motivate students towards innovation, as we were unable to provide convincing justification that innovation leads to jobs. Students are looking for jobs, and the job selection process is not demanding innovation-driven outcomes. Hence, students are losing interest in this process." Yes, I agree with the participant's view, but we need to be personally convinced that participating in the innovation process helps students sustain employment in the future.

When I started the "Inspire to Innovate (i2i)" storytelling movement in 2011, this question was raised 15 years ago. It was the same situation and the same opinion. When I started the Design Thinking campaign in 2020 (www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rga2aqobKgs), the question remained the same, as did the opinion.

In 2026, when an AI model can read 750,000 words (≈2,500 pages) in minutes, which usually takes a human 3–5 weeks of full-time effort, who is needed in companies? When 30,000 lines of code can be written in minutes, and refinement after a few prompts takes only a few hours, whereas the same task requires 4–8 developers working for 2–6 months, who is needed in the IT industry? An HR professional generally takes five days to review 1,000 resumes, whereas an AI model can do it in 30 minutes. Who is needed in the HR department?

There are two indispensable skills needed in the industry: the Problem-Solving Mindset and the Art of Storytelling.

Read this story. A couple of days back, TOI published an article on Ford. It has brought back more than 350 retired or laid-off senior technical specialists, affectionately called "Gray Beards," to lead physical quality reviews. It seems AI-driven inspection systems consistently failed to detect critical mechanical and design errors before vehicles rolled off the assembly line.

At the human level, there is another quality we need to develop in our next generation of children. In English, there are four words.

Pity means feeling sorry for someone, but from a distance. You see that they are suffering, but you usually do not do anything to help. Sympathy means you care about someone who is going through a difficult time. You may offer kind words or comfort, but you may not fully understand what they are feeling.Empathy means trying to understand how the other person feels by putting yourself in their place. You connect with their emotions and understand their pain. Compassion goes one step further. It means you understand their suffering and also want to do something to help reduce it.

In simple words: Pity says, "I feel sorry for you." Sympathy says, "I care about you." Empathy says, "I understand how you feel." Compassion says, "I understand your pain, and I want to help you."

The projects we provide to our students should cultivate empathy and compassion. Unfortunately, many students are failing to develop these two qualities nowadays.

In summary, we should promote three aspects—Compassion and/or Empathy, the Problem-Solving Mindset, and finally the Art of Storytelling. These three can define Engineering, Management, and Design Education, and the survival strategy for 2035!!

Do you agree?

Ravi Saripalle 

The Infrastructure That Doesn't Appear on Maps: The Next Billion-Dollar Opportunity in the Age of AI

Dear Friends,

When my father was in a hospital bed in a city during his last days, he insisted that we take him back to our hometown. Though we didn’t have that oxygen infrastructure at home, we managed to arrange it there. I am not a fan of the hometown concept, but I understand that it was his emotional attachment. In some cases, I have observed that owning a house vs. renting a house is an emotional issue in that age group.

Why am I bringing this concept now?

Yesterday, there was news about a 94-year-old US citizen who submitted a request to the Government of India to regain her Indian citizenship. She wants to be in her home village during this last phase of her life. It seems it was her final wish, and her children are working towards the same.

Interestingly, Vani Kola, an Indian venture capitalist, talked about Emotional Infrastructure in her weekly newsletter yesterday. She was writing about how cuteness is a powerful emotional cue and how big businesses were built across the world. She started explaining that big brands like Nemo, Noddy, Hello Kitty, and the Duolingo owl all draw on the same emotional language of innocence and playfulness.

She says, "Japan turned this into a cultural force through kawaii, where cuteness moved across toys, stationery, fashion, food, public signs, mascots, and brands. Hello Kitty turned 50 recently and still reportedly earns billions every year." She was talking about the Kidults market, as they also hold the buying power. It seems adults spend USD 9 billion annually worldwide.

If we delve deeper into this subject and business, emotional infrastructure is not limited to toys, fashion, and stationery. It is much bigger than that. In my view, a ventilator is emotional infrastructure. I have seen many cases where a patient is technically dead but kept on a ventilator as the zodiac stars (religious belief) are not good during that period. Palliative care is a similar subject. Memorial parks are emotional infrastructure. Google Photos is emotional infrastructure.

For that matter, WhatsApp's Last Seen feature is emotional infrastructure. Old fountain pens, watches, and birthday gifts are emotional infrastructure. If we broadly classify this, it is of four types: Memory Infrastructure, Relationship Infrastructure, Hope Infrastructure, and Identity Infrastructure.

Roads connect places. Emotional infrastructure connects people. Sometimes, physical infrastructure helps us live. Emotional infrastructure gives us reasons to live.

In line with this thought, Taarangam Tales recently launched Netra Raksha – Eye Care Tips for the 4–8-year age group. Their maiden character, Ranga, like Spiderman, presents this book. All pictures are drawn, and the content is curated using HI (Human Illustrated for Human Intelligence), without using AI.

You may preview this book at: https://heyzine.com/flip-book/cbf3ba52ec.html

Wishing Ranga becomes part of your emotional infrastructure.

What emotional infrastructure are you holding now?

Ravi Saripalle

From Guru-Shishya to AI Agents: Will AI Replace Teachers?

Dear Friends,

I am a 5th-generation teacher in my family. My great-great-grandfather, great-grandfather, and grandfather followed the Guru-Shishya Parampara way of teaching. It was an oral tradition, and the teacher was the sole authority. The thought was that books would destroy memory. However, both my parents were school teachers. By then, books had become the authority. The teacher’s role was to transmit knowledge from books.

When I joined teaching in 2010, MOOCs were starting to pick up. The role of teachers had shifted toward mentoring and inspiring students in the classroom. During the pandemic, I recorded my Design Thinking classes at home for the first time and shared them with students. In 2022, one of my friends started a startup to develop an AI Avatar (skill2030.com) to replace an English teacher. Last year, I taught AI for Business and helped all our MBA students develop one or another AI Agent. In spite of this, as of 2024, 269 million students are enrolled worldwide. Universities survived in 2026 as well.

You might be wondering why I am talking about this journey. Today, I have to deliver a webinar on how careers are going to change, especially for MBA students, in the context of AI disruption. The moot question I need to answer is whether university enrolment will decline, increase, or remain stagnant. This is a hard question. However, teaching patterns and methodologies will change drastically.

1000 AD–1450: Gurus and Monasteries focus

1450–1900: Printing Press focus

1900–1980: Radio, Film, and Television focus

1980–2000: Computer, CD, and Multimedia era

2000–2010: Internet era

2010–2020: MOOCs era

2020–2023: Remote classes during COVID

2023–2026: GenAI era

2026 onwards: Personal AI Tutor / Agentic Era

Every time, the same question popped up: "Is the teacher still relevant?"

In the last 1,000 years, teachers survived every disruption. However, there is a catch. The teachers who changed and transformed during each of these phases survived.

What is the one skill required for a teacher across all these phases?

The mindset to adapt.

I recently read a small case. Two neighbours were fighting over apples supposedly damaging tulips. Law students produced pages of legal arguments. The professor ended the discussion with one observation:

"Apples fall in autumn. Tulips bloom in spring."

The case itself did not make sense.

In the age of AI, judgment matters more than information.

Hence, in my view, we as teachers need to bring that judgment into the classroom. We need to teach human-centeredness, empathy, design thinking, and commensurability rather than merely bringing theories and research into the classroom.

More than producing research papers, teachers have to spend time building simple, inspiring stories and short cases and bringing them to the table for discussion. Today, a good AI agent like Jenni.ai can produce a better research paper than a human teacher spending hours and hours writing one. The teacher's role now is to read such AI-produced information and turn it into meaningful capsules for classroom consumption.

I am seriously considering changing my teaching methodology in this direction rather than spending most of my time on in-depth research and other activities. This, in my view, will be the biggest help to students in the age of AI.

The Mindset That Kept Teachers Relevant for 1,000 Years

Ravi Saripalle

40 Years to Malgudi Days: Still Relevant in the Age of Reels :From Debugging Antennas to Debugging Life

Dear Friends,

We bought a TV in 1986! I remember it was a Dynora TV. It was a CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) television with a wooden or dark plastic cabinet. It had manual channel tuning knobs and a rooftop antenna connection. It had to be pointed toward the nearest Doordarshan transmission tower. TV signals traveled through the air and were captured by the antenna. When strong winds came, the picture became blurry, or "snow" appeared on the screen. Two people used to operate it. One changed the direction, and the other, at home, shouted about the picture quality!! In IT language, it is called debugging and testing!!

Today, we have transitioned to Cable TV, DTH (Dish TV, Tata Play, Airtel), and Internet streaming (YouTube, Netflix, Hotstar). In those days, the total number of National Hindi serials was around 10–20. A typical household probably knew 80–90% of them. Today, across the world, there are approximately 5,000–10,000 TV serials and 3,000–5,000 OTT originals. The total number of active shows today is around 10,000–15,000. If you include library content, the total would be 100,000–300,000 serials/shows/series available for streaming globally.

Today, I don't think any family member discusses any serial because viewership is completely fragmented. We moved from content scarcity to content abundance, and now the new scarcity is attention.

In those days, the prominent programs were News, Krishi Darshan, Chitrahaar, Hum Log (started in 1984), Sunday movies, and regional programming. However, I still remember a serial named Malgudi Days. Malgudi Days (1986) is one of India's most beloved television series, based on the works of R. K. Narayan and directed primarily by Shankar Nag.

I asked GPT a simple question—what was the title song, to test GPT's performance!! It gave the right answer: Tan-na-na-na... tan-na-na-na...

Why did I get captivated by Malgudi Days? Malgudi Days teaches empathy, observation, moral reasoning, and cultural roots without sounding preachy. Malgudi is a fictional small town. The episode I remember was The Missing Mail/Maa Aur Beta. A mother keeps waiting for her son at the railway station. I don't remember whether the son comes back or not—mostly not. Trains come and go. Passengers come and go. But a mother's hope remains.

Where are such programs today? Where is the time to share such emotions? The other day, I was traveling in a local bus. Two children were simply playing video games and fighting virtually while sitting side by side. The parents were watching their own reels!

"Taarangam Tales" (@taarangam.tales) recently launched Emotions of Ranga, a book that presents various emotions, their importance, and what is good and what is wrong. We need such books now because they are missing from our lives.

Malgudi Days was written by R. K. Narayan in 1943 as a short story collection. Shankar Nag, the director of this serial, lived a short life (35 years), but he became a true legend in Karnataka. Shankar Nag was not just a filmmaker; he was a visionary urban planner and social reformer. In 1989, he invested his own money and conceptualized the Bengaluru Metro blueprint, envisioning a modern public transport system decades before its actual implementation. His brother, Anant Nag, who acted in Malgudi Days, is active in public life.

Rasipuram Krishnaswami Iyer Narayanaswami (R. K. Narayan), the author of Malgudi Days, and his youngest brother, the famous Indian cartoonist and illustrator R. K. Laxman, are true legends who influenced many families across India.

Do you have any nostalgic moments with Malgudi?

Ravi Saripalle

Layoffs, Mangoes, and the Meaning of Life

Dear Friends,

A couple of days back, I read a LinkedIn post that said: “CTC of ₹80 lakhs. A house in the US. A successful career. And yet, a man died by suicide after losing his job. Recently, a young couple in Bengaluru reportedly died by suicide after the husband was laid off. He had earlier lost a job in the US, rebuilt his career in India, and then faced another layoff in India.”

At the same time, I also read an interesting post about Deba Padhyami from Tamasa village in Malkangiri district, Odisha, who has successfully grown the famous Japanese Miyazaki mango. This fruit is so rare and valuable that premium-quality mangoes have reportedly sold for nearly ₹3 lakh per kilogram in international markets. However, Deba is now facing a completely different problem because he has no idea how to sell them in international markets. He has been spending sleepless nights guarding the tree. Buyers are usually HNIs, luxury fruit stores, premium hotels, and high-end restaurants.

Layoffs are definitely stressful. In my first job after campus, I worked for nine months at a company and tasted what a layoff feels like. Dreams get shattered. We become low and insecure. We get drained. We undersell ourselves in every situation. Even if you are highly talented, a lack of confidence leads you to make multiple mistakes.

Then I realized that when you are at a highly comfortable stage and at the peak of your career, you should quit your job, rank, and earnings and start fresh. It does not mean shifting between multiple companies for a higher package. That is another insecurity process.

In my view, ten years is a decent period to prove yourself in any organization. After that, if you are doing well in that organization, we should move on and start from scratch, as if we were freshers again, in terms of experience, learning, and skills. I attempted two different transitions with different skill requirements. They partly worked and partly failed.

Now I have crossed 50! I do not think God permits me another major transition due to age, skills, health, and many other family parameters. Maybe the next transition will be learning how to lead a retirement life without a proper pension and with fluctuating financial markets that offer no fixed returns!

You might be wondering how these things are connected.

For the last few months, many highly paid executives have been getting laid off. Maybe Japanese Miyazaki mangoes could be part of the solution! If someone with international experience and someone with traditional farming techniques join together, India can become a truly Atmanirbhar Bharat.

We also have different desi varieties. Kesar mango, a GI-tagged variety from Gujarat, sells for $15 to $25 per box in international markets. Alphonso mango from Maharashtra sells for ₹700 to ₹2,000 per dozen. Noorjahan mango from Madhya Pradesh costs between ₹500 and ₹1,500 per piece. Safeda from Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu sells for $10 to $15 per kilogram.

If we have enough money for food, healthcare, shelter, and a few basic luxuries, it is more than sufficient to lead a comfortable life.

We should also realize that even if we leave behind a lot of wealth for our children, statistics show that they may not always get along well. Their trajectories, lifestyles, choices, aspirations, and spending patterns will be different. These differences often become reasons for disagreements among siblings.

God has already designed a way for us to live on this earth and has also fixed a time for our departure. Accept the fact, live meaningfully, and move on.

Ravi Saripalle

Are We Heading Towards the Confluence of Climate Crisis, Capability Crisis, and Computational Crisis?

Dear Friends,

In our apartment complex, 7 out of 14 bore pumps are not functioning, despite a depth of 100 ft. One of my relatives’ apartments has had a bore well that has been dry for the last month and has been dependent on a tanker. Of course, we are in the middle of a hot summer now. I understand this is a usual scene for the last 40–50 years. But the context is different now!

In my childhood, when we used to hear the news on the radio, weather reports were more prominent. During summer, we used to hear about a few places, like Ramagundam, in the combined Andhra Pradesh that crossed 40°C. Nowadays, more than 60–70 mandals in the state have registered maximum temperatures above 40°C.

While we are talking about the climate crisis, the IEA says data center electricity consumption reached 415 TWh in 2024 and could more than double to 945 TWh by 2030 in some projections. America today has 4,011 data centers. By 2030? More than 7,000. Power consumption today: 29 gigawatts. By 2030: 134 gigawatts. That is 12% of all U.S. electricity. Are we heading towards a climate crisis?

Electrical Engineering researchers have a significant scope for research to meet this demand; otherwise, it could lead to another energy crisis.

Recently, Uber reportedly exhausted its 2026 AI budget in just 4 months on Claude Code, highlighting how token-based AI pricing can undermine traditional enterprise budgeting. It also appears that Microsoft is reportedly cancelling many internal Claude Code licenses because of rising AI coding costs and shifting users toward GitHub Copilot, though there is no official statement yet.

What does this mean? This may be the beginning of a computational crisis

If an engineering graduate learns coding using these tools, assuming free GPT availability, what happens if these tools suddenly stall? What happens to these students' learning?

On top of this, recently I saw a video of a few workers wearing head-mounted cameras and doing ironing, clothes folding, gardening, cooking, and walking in public places, while donating their experience to machines that could eventually perform the same tasks. Interestingly, they are being paid only 12 cents per hour for this activity. One day, they may be powering their own replacements. This may be the beginning of a capability crisis

Meanwhile, Christopher Olah, Anthropic Co-Founder, was invited by the Vatican as one of the few technology representatives, signaling a rare collaboration between the AI industry and religious institutions. Olah emphasized that AI governance cannot be left only to Big Tech companies.

In 1891, Pope Leo XIII addressed similar concerns during the Industrial Revolution. Again, after 135 years, in 2026, Pope Leo XIV called for protecting human dignity in the age of AI.

In this chaos, while the world debates who will build the biggest AI model, a 16-year-old student from Gujarat built a solar-powered AI rover (Edge Computing without WiFi) that helps farmers save water and improve yields using simple, affordable technology. These prototypes remind us that India's AI future may be shaped not by trillion-dollar models, but by solving real-world problems at scale.

What is your preparation to avoid falling into the trap of the Climate Crisis, Capability Crisis, and Computational Crisis?

Ravi Saripalle

The heart is not damaged only by cholesterol; it is also damaged by unspoken pressure!!

Dear Friends

My father passed away in his late fifties, and at that time, I was in my mid-twenties. It was a bit early for his age; however, the silver lining is that there were no major responsibilities regarding children's education, marriages/their jobs, or financial liability. These 3 factors predominantly determine the cost of death. However, we cannot value or replace the emotional loss.

Since then, I have been doing some research on age, responsibilities, and the cost of death trio patterns. In my view, up to 40, the body behaves like a new machine. 40–55:

Minor warning lights appear. 55–60: The machine still runs, but hidden wear becomes visible. WHO and Lancet-linked studies show: working >55 hours/week increases heart disease risk. On Feb 19, 2026, The Times of India published an interesting article titled “Success stress: Why high performers face greater cardiac risk.” This is absolutely true. High achievers are frequently conditioned to remain composed under pressure. Research has demonstrated an association between unexpressed stress, autonomic imbalance, and increased cardiac risk.

You might be wondering why I am talking about this topic today. Yes, yesterday, when I heard about a known high-profile professional who passed away due to cardiac arrest at the age of 59, I was a bit shocked. He is a veteran at Microsoft. I first heard his name when we worked for Microsoft as a vendor. My spouse used to work as a Project Manager for Windows testing, and I worked for MS IT Systems. This person used to be the head of Windows. He was instrumental in setting up the India MS Office. He was also an active angel and seed investor in startups across the US and internationally. He is considered to be a generous mentor, a visionary leader, and one of the most respected figures in the developer ecosystem.

It is not one isolated case; in recent times, we are witnessing more and more people in this age bracket getting affected. Of course, I do not know the personal background of this case. Generally, when I am trying to analyze similar situations, I find multiple reasons. There is a subtle pressure that builds up after 50. The time we can prove is less. We inch up in the professional ladder to the peak stages and are accountable for certain targets and revenues. Without any symptoms, our body becomes weak unknowingly due to peak usage. Our responsibilities are at the final stage and critical point (esp. children's marriages, their jobs, pension worries, Basic ailments like Sugar, BP, Heart, etc.). Externally, we look healthy, but internally, the pressure gets jacked up.

There was an interesting article in the Times back in 2025. Study finds two turning points at which the body begins aging rapidly. A major study by Stanford Medicine has discovered that our bodies go through two major “speed-up” phases — around mid-40s and again around early 60s — when many biological systems shift dramatically at once. During these ages, organs, tissues, and internal systems start to wear down more quickly than before. Aging might come in waves. More precisely, approximately at ages 44 and 60.

What is the solution for this subtle problem? Can you solve this, since many of the parameters are not in our control? The true answer is NO. We cannot solve this problem, no matter what exercise, medication, or props you create. It is under God’s intervention. At most, what we can do is start planning to resolve these issues from 44 and try to complete them before 60, where these turning points are critical in our lives. If you look at our ancient wisdom, they planned our life accordingly- marriage, kids, retirement dates, etc are designed that way. We should not defy God’s design. Accept them with grace and surrender to HIM.

God designed pain not only to punish, but sometimes to pause us. These are my personal views.

Ravi Saripalle