LinkedIn removes Bhavish Aggarwal’s ‘pronoun illness’ post; Ola CEO reacts

Ola CEO Bhavish Aggarwal slammed LinkedIn on Thursday for removing Aggarwal’s ‘pronoun illness’ post from the social networking platform calling it "unsafe". Taking to X (formerly Twitter), the Ola CEO said that LinkedIn’s AI is imposing a political ideology on Indian users.

“Dear @LinkedIn this post of mine was about YOUR AI imposing a political ideology on Indian users that’s unsafe, sinister. Rich of you to call my post unsafe! This is exactly why we need to build own tech and AI in India. Else we’ll just be pawns in others political objectives,” Aggarwal wrote on Twitter.

The development comes days after LinkedIn AI description addressed Aggarwal as ‘they’ and ‘their’ instead of ‘he’ and ‘him.’ Calling this out, the Ola CEO had said that most Indians don’t have a clue about "pronouns illness." "Most of us in India have no clue about the politics of this pronoun illness. People do it because it’s become expected in our corporate culture, especially MNCs. Better to send this illness back where it came from. Our culture has always had respect for all. No need for new pronouns," his post read.

“Hoping that this “pronoun illness” doesn’t reach India. Many “big city schools” in India are now teaching it to kids. Also see many CVs with pronouns these days. Need to know where to draw the line in following the West blindly!... This “pronouns illness” is being perpetuated in India by MNCs without us Indians even realising it,” he added.

His post received mixed reactions on social media users with some users lauding Aggarwal, while others calling him out for being insensitive towards gender pronouns.

Notably, in February this year, Aggarwal launched AI chatbot Krutrim in the public beta. The AI chatbot has been named after Aggarwal’s AI startup, Krutrim, which was founded in December last year. Krutrim received $50 million in financing at a valuation of $1 billion, thus making it the country’s first startup unicorn in 2024. Matrix Partners India led the funding round, and Krutrim claims to be the first AI unicorn in India.

Krutrim's AI models, introduced in December, can comprehend over 20 Indian languages and generate text in 10 Indian languages, including Bengali, Tamil, Malayalam, Gujarati, and Marathi. An advanced version, Krutrim Pro, was launched in February this year.

“We’ve rooted Krutrim strongly into Indian values and data with over 10+ Indian languages and ready to assist in English, Hindi, Tamil, Bengali, Marathi, Kannada, Gujarati and even Hinglish!,” Aggarwal earlier said.