Chetan Bhagat

Bhagat advises people to self-regulate their AI use and combine it with their own thinking.

“Use your NI along with AI. Use your natural intelligence along with artificial intelligence”

Tomorrow, Today: India's Gig Economy, Education & The Future of Work | Chetan Bhagat | Tomorrow Today (Sep 29, 2026) · Listen from 2:04:24

Bhagat warns that India, as a consumer rather than creator of AI, risks losing critical thinking among its youth.

“We are consumers of AI. We are not creators of AI”

Tomorrow, Today: India's Gig Economy, Education & The Future of Work | Chetan Bhagat | Tomorrow Today (Sep 29, 2026) · Listen from 1:54:18

Bhagat predicts serious AI disasters will occur before humanity learns to regulate it, as with nuclear weapons.

“So we will have disasters in AI, very bad ones. And then we will learn”

Tomorrow, Today: India's Gig Economy, Education & The Future of Work | Chetan Bhagat | Tomorrow Today (Sep 29, 2026) · Listen from 1:51:45

Bhagat recounts being paid to launch dozens of AI-written or even blank books at mass events.

“I launched 30 books in two hours. Nobody's there in the audience”

Tomorrow, Today: India's Gig Economy, Education & The Future of Work | Chetan Bhagat | Tomorrow Today (Sep 29, 2026) · Listen from 1:41:01

Bhagat notes that no AI-written book has become a bestseller and argues people want human connection in art.

“Not one book has become a bestseller written by AI”

Tomorrow, Today: India's Gig Economy, Education & The Future of Work | Chetan Bhagat | Tomorrow Today (Sep 29, 2026) · Listen from 1:33:38

Bhagat says he has tried having AI write his books and found it terrible at fiction.

“I'll say write a Chetan Bhagat book and take it out. I won't have to do anything. But it's terrible. It sucks. At fiction especially”

Tomorrow, Today: India's Gig Economy, Education & The Future of Work | Chetan Bhagat | Tomorrow Today (Sep 29, 2026) · Listen from 1:30:26

Bhagat describes his decades of hustle as driven by insecurity, likening himself to a rat with its tail on fire.

“So if you have a rat whose tail's on fire, he's going to run the fastest”

Tomorrow, Today: India's Gig Economy, Education & The Future of Work | Chetan Bhagat | Tomorrow Today (Sep 29, 2026) · Listen from 1:16:40

Bhagat says he stopped making films because working in Bollywood became draining.

“I just got tired of Bollywood. It's very, very draining to work with those people with like lower IQ than you”

Tomorrow, Today: India's Gig Economy, Education & The Future of Work | Chetan Bhagat | Tomorrow Today (Sep 29, 2026) · Listen from 1:16:47

Bhagat credits his creativity to the boredom of a pre-internet childhood.

“That's why I always tell people I was very lucky to be in somewhat boring times because creativity only comes from bottom”

Tomorrow, Today: India's Gig Economy, Education & The Future of Work | Chetan Bhagat | Tomorrow Today (Sep 29, 2026) · Listen from 3:19

Bhagat argues that India's hierarchical culture of unquestioned elders produces a subordinate society hostile to science.

“That creates a certain slave-like society, subordinate kind of society. Science by definition means questioning what's going on”

Tomorrow, Today: India's Gig Economy, Education & The Future of Work | Chetan Bhagat | Tomorrow Today (Sep 29, 2026) · Listen from 44:04

Bhagat describes Kota landlords installing steel mesh around ceiling fans to prevent student suicides.

“They cover the fan in a mesh, steel mesh, so that you can't hang yourself”

Tomorrow, Today: India's Gig Economy, Education & The Future of Work | Chetan Bhagat | Tomorrow Today (Sep 29, 2026) · Listen from 43:05

Bhagat states that India produces around 600,000 engineers a year without enough jobs for them.

“6 lakh, 600,000 engineers are coming every year. And there's not enough job”

Tomorrow, Today: India's Gig Economy, Education & The Future of Work | Chetan Bhagat | Tomorrow Today (Sep 29, 2026) · Listen from 19:07

Bhagat argues many Indians are content with low aspiration as long as data and food remain cheap.

“In Hindi, they call it sasta data, sasta atta. Which means data is cheap and dough, flour is cheap”

Tomorrow, Today: India's Gig Economy, Education & The Future of Work | Chetan Bhagat | Tomorrow Today (Sep 29, 2026) · Listen from 29:44

Bhagat says entry-level salaries for graduates have barely changed since he left IIT in 1995.

“I remember when I was in IIT, I mean, 95, the salaries when we were getting out were like same one and a half, two lakhs a year. It's still the same”

Tomorrow, Today: India's Gig Economy, Education & The Future of Work | Chetan Bhagat | Tomorrow Today (Sep 29, 2026) · Listen from 27:56

Bhagat suggests automation of white- and blue-collar work will push societies toward universal basic income.

“It is going towards what Elon Musk has been saying that there will be a universal basic income”

Tomorrow, Today: India's Gig Economy, Education & The Future of Work | Chetan Bhagat | Tomorrow Today (Sep 29, 2026) · Listen from 1:46:32

Bhagat argues that many Indian internet unicorns harness cheap labor of the poor to serve a small wealthy minority.

“we have a lot of poor people and we have their labor available at a pittance and almost more than half of the unicorns”

Tomorrow, Today: India's Gig Economy, Education & The Future of Work | Chetan Bhagat | Tomorrow Today (Sep 29, 2026) · Listen from 18:13