Zerodha will not fire anyone even if AI makes jobs redundant: Nithin Kamath

Discount brokerage Zerodha will not sack anyone even if artificial intelligence makes an earlier job redundant, says Nithin Kamath, the founder and CEO of India's biggest brokerage.

Kamath expects AI to take away jobs and disrupt society, and this has prompted the brokerage to formulate an internal AI policy.

"We will not fire anyone on the team just because we have implemented a new piece of technology that makes an earlier job redundant," the Zerodha CEO says, adding that the company's new AI policy will give clarity to the team amid job loss anxiety due to AI.

In today's capitalism, businesses prioritise shareholder value creation above stakeholders like employees, customers, vendors, the country, and the planet, says Kamath. Markets incentivise business leaders to prioritise profits over everything else; if not, shareholders vote them out, he adds.

The Zerodha founder warns that many companies will likely let go of employees and blame it on AI. "In the process, companies will earn more and make their shareholders wealthier, worsening wealth inequality," he says, adding that this isn't a good outcome for humanity.

While the hope is for governments worldwide to put some guardrails, it may be unlikely given the de-globalisation rhetoric, says Kamath. "No country would want to sit idle while another becomes more powerful on the back of AI."

The Zerodha CEO says it is unlikely that humans will be able to compete with intelligent machines in many walks of life. Kamath says he was able to create an image of a CEO being replaced by an intelligent machine in the style of Da Vinci in just a few seconds.

"It'll take a few years for us to see the real impact of AI on humanity. Businesses with financial freedom should, if nothing else, give their teams that helped build the business time to adapt. I know some of this might sound weird coming from the CEO of a broking firm," says Kamath.

These comments come days after veteran investor and Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett said that humanity won't be able to 'un-invent' artificial intelligence (AI), comparing the advancement of technology to the atom bomb. While responding to a question at Berkshire Hathaway's annual meeting in Omaha, Nebraska, Buffett admitted that he gets a little bit worried since AI can do all kinds of things.

In an interview with Fortune India earlier this year, Kamath said that Zerodha has been able to onboard millions of users without having to double tech expenses. "In my view, competition lacks the tech to support such a scale of business today. We have been able to go from 2 million to 10 million customers without increasing our team size, because we have used tech to optimise and improve every single process. We didn't hire more people to solve these problems like our competitors did over the past two years," he said.