In the heated global debate about artificial intelligence taking over human jobs, a prominent Indian entrepreneur and investor has delivered a compelling reality check. Anupam Mittal, the founder of Shaadi.com and a celebrated judge on Shark Tank India, has shared a detailed perspective on why AI is not poised to replace human beings in the foreseeable future.
The Staggering Scale of Mimicking a Human Mind
In a widely discussed post on the professional networking site LinkedIn, Mittal tackled the question head-on: "Is AI about to replace humans?" His succinct answer was a definitive "Not anytime soon." He backed this claim with a striking comparison that highlights the immense efficiency of the human brain.
Mittal explained that to simulate the capabilities of a single human brain using current AI technology, one would require a data centre roughly the size of a football field operating at maximum capacity. This enormous setup would only be able to mimic how one person sees, thinks, learns, and makes decisions in real-time. In stark contrast, the human brain accomplishes all these complex tasks using a mere 20 watts of energy, which is less than the power consumed by a standard household light bulb.
The Planetary-Sized Gap in True Replication
The entrepreneur took his argument a step further, pointing out an even larger gap. If one attempts to biologically replicate the human brain—including its neurons, synapses, chemistry, and plasticity—the theoretical computer needed would have to be the size of the planet Earth. "That's the gap people forget," Mittal emphasised in his post, underlining the fundamental physical and engineering hurdles that remain.
He acknowledged that AI excels in specific domains like automation, repetition, and extracting patterns from massive datasets. However, he firmly believes that quintessentially human qualities are beyond simple computation. Creativity, judgment, contextual understanding, taste, and resilience are not just additional parameters to be coded.
"These have evolved over millions of years and are emergent properties of a system that learns continuously, reasons across domains, and compresses reality with extreme efficiency," Mittal stated.
AI as a Tool, Not a Substitute for Human Ingenuity
According to the Shaadi.com founder, replacing human creativity would demand a fundamental paradigm shift in how we understand and compute intelligence. It is not a challenge that can be solved merely by building larger AI models or adding more graphical processing units (GPUs). Until such a revolutionary breakthrough occurs, AI will remain an exceptionally powerful tool that augments human capability, not a substitute for human ingenuity itself.
Mittal concluded with a powerful reflection on the marvel of human biology. "The real miracle of the brain isn't intelligence," he wrote. "It's all the complexity that fits inside your skull, runs on sugar and oxygen, and dissipates less heat than a light bulb. That's the human flex AI can't replicate."
His analysis provides a grounded counterpoint to the often hyperbolic narratives surrounding AI, reminding the tech community and the public of the unique and energy-efficient marvel that is the human mind.
