Technology

Most outsourced coders in India will be gone in 2 years due to A.I., Stability AI boss predicts

Published

2 years ago

July 18, 2023

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OpenAI Dall E 2 on a phone with an AI brain illustration seen on the screen behind.

Jonathan Raa | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Most outsourced programmers in India will see their jobs wiped out in the next year or two, Stability AI CEO Emad Mostaque said.

Mostaque, on a call with UBS analysts, said that most of the country’s outsourced coders will lose their jobs as the effects of AI mean that it is now possible for software to be developed with far fewer people.

“I think that it affects different types of jobs in different ways,” Mostaque said on a call with analysts at the Swiss investment bank last week.

“If you’re doing a job in front of a computer, and no one ever sees you, then it’s massively impactful, because these models are like really talented grads.”

According to Mostaque, not everyone will be affected in the same way, however.

That is due in no small part to differing rules and regulations around the world. Countries with stronger labor laws, like France, will be less likely to see such an impact, for example.

In India, Mostaque said, “outsourced coders up to level three programmers will be gone in the next year or two, whereas in France, you’ll never fire a developer.”

“So it affects different models in different countries in different ways in different sectors.”

India is home to more than 5 million software programmers, who are most under threat from the impacts of advanced AI tools like ChatGPT, according to a report from Bloomberg.

Harvard professor on A.I. job risks: We need to upskill ad update business models

Asia’s second-largest country is a prime location for companies that outsource back-office jobs and other roles overseas. Silicon Valley tech giants, Wall Street banks, airlines and retailers are all customers to India’s outsourcing firms.

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), an Indian multinational IT services and consulting firm, is the country’s largest outsourcing provider. Others include Infosys and Wipro.

TCS has bet big on generative AI, committing to train more than 25,000 engineers on the technology over Microsoft’s Azure Open AI service to “help clients accelerate their adoption of this powerful new technology.”

In an interview with CNBC Thursday, TCS’s CEO N. Ganapathy Subramaniam said that the company began taking a “machine-first” approach to project delivery about four years ago and it showed how AI will make an “enormous impact on the way that we operate and the way that we do things.”

Generative AI, Subramaniam said, “has just advanced it by a few years.”

Mostaque reiterated a previous statement he made saying that there will be “no more programmers” in five years’ time — however, he caveated this to say that he meant coders in the traditional sense.

“Why would you have to write code where the computer can write code better? When you deconstruct the programming thing from bug testing to unit testing to ideation, an AI can do that, just better,” Mostaque said.

“But it won’t be doing it automatically, it will be AI ‘co-pilots,'” Mostaque said. “That means less people are needed for classical programming, but then are they needed for other things? This is the question and this is the balance that we have to understand, because different areas are also affected differently.”

WATCH: A.I. will make an ‘enormous impact’ on the way we operate: Tata Consultancy Services

Technology

Figure AI sued by whistleblower who warned that startup’s robots could ‘fracture a human skull’

Published

9 hours ago

November 21, 2025

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$Figure AI sued by whistleblower who warned that startup's robots could 'fracture a human skull'$

Startup Figure AI is developing general-purpose humanoid robots.

Figure AI

Figure AI, an Nvidia-backed developer of humanoid robots, was sued by the startup’s former head of product safety who alleged that he was wrongfully terminated after warning top executives that the company’s robots “were powerful enough to fracture a human skull.”

Robert Gruendel, a principal robotic safety engineer, is the plaintiff in the suit filed Friday in a federal court in the Northern District of California. Gruendel’s attorneys describe their client as a whistleblower who was fired in September, days after lodging his “most direct and documented safety complaints.”

The suit lands two months after Figure was valued at $39 billion in a funding round led by Parkway Venture Capital. That’s a 15-fold increase in valuation from early 2024, when the company raised a round from investors including Jeff Bezos, Nvidia, and Microsoft.

In the complaint, Gruendel’s lawyers say the plaintiff warned Figure CEO Brett Adcock and Kyle Edelberg, chief engineer, about the robot’s lethal capabilities, and said one “had already carved a ¼-inch gash into a steel refrigerator door during a malfunction.”

The complaint also says Gruendel warned company leaders not to “downgrade” a “safety road map” that he had been asked to present to two prospective investors who ended up funding the company.

Gruendel worried that a “product safety plan which contributed to their decision to invest” had been “gutted” the same month Figure closed the investment round, a move that “could be interpreted as fraudulent,” the suit says.

The plaintiff’s concerns were “treated as obstacles, not obligations,” and the company cited a “vague ‘change in business direction’ as the pretext” for his termination, according to the suit.

Gruendel is seeking economic, compensatory and punitive damages and demanding a jury trial.

Figure didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Nor did attorneys for Gruendel.

The humanoid robot market remains nascent today, with companies like Tesla and Boston Dynamics pursuing futuristic offerings, alongside Figure, while China’s Unitree Robotics is preparing for an IPO. Morgan Stanley said in a report in May that adoption is “likely to accelerate in the 2030s” and could top $5 trillion by 2050.

Read the filing here: