Some Thoughts on AI, Entry-Level Jobs, Dogfooding, and War
A 2-Pager – Ajit Chaudhuri – April 2026
“I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do my art and writing; not AI to do my art and writing so that I can do my laundry and dishes.” – Joanna Maciejewska
Allow me to get straight to the matter at hand.
There is an information overload on AI and its effect upon the job market, much of which can be summarized in a single phrase – AI is re-shaping how we work. Senior pros with reputational capital and social networks may be relatively safe for now (I don’t include the fifty-plus-wallahs in this bracket, for whom it’s brutal out there but that’s less to do with AI and more to do with payroll cholesterol), but those starting out are seriously screwed. Why? Because AI can already execute many typically junior-level tasks such as drafting reports, synthesizing research, fixing codes, cleaning data, inter alia. And this is showing in the sharp fall in numbers of early career employees in the fields most exposed to AI such as customer service and software development.
A recent article, “The Perils of Using AI to Replace Entry-Level Jobs” by Edmondson and Chamorro-Premuzic in the HBR of March-April 2026, suggests that slashing such jobs to cut costs is short sighted, and it offers four reasons for this.
One – to build future leaders. Every capable professional starts somewhere and acquires skills and perspectives by learning a trade from the ground up. S/he evolves in time from consciously incompetent to competent to unconsciously competent and is thereby able to see the large picture and take high-stake decisions. Stripping out entry-level jobs severs this pipeline, and is likely to result in leadership becoming abstract, detached, and dangerously naïve.
Two – to fuel innovation from ground-up. Innovation often bubbles from those closest to the work. Junior employees, unencumbered by legacy thinking, are uniquely positioned to spot inefficiencies and to suggest creative fixes via the process of using one’s own products and services internally to test, refine, and validate them before their release to customers (referred to as ‘dogfooding’ or, alternatively, eating one's own dogfood). AI delivers consistent outputs whereas humans introduce variability which, while messy, is often the source of new ideas, improvements, and breakthroughs.
Three – to enrich an organization’s work culture. Today’s workplace has five generations working side-by-side. This results in a diversity in age and perspectives that enriches workplace culture and sparks creativity. Removing young people drains the workspace of fresh energy and narrows the range of viewpoints.
And four – to protect society. Work provides purpose, structure and belonging (in addition to income). A society with able-bodied youths without meaningful occupation pays a price. Protecting entry-level jobs is both a corporate and a social responsibility.
Speaking as someone who spends a bit of time with young people just before they hit the workspace (I am an occasional faculty at MBA programmes around the country) and sees first-hand the stress from a collapsing entry-level job market combined with a significant never-never on an educational loan, this article strikes a chord.
Each point individually makes sense. The outcomes of the first are already manifested in the development sector thanks to the parachuting of corporate types into senior leadership roles; people who have not done time at the grassroots, for whom terms such as ‘community’, ‘empowerment’, and ‘participation’ are just words. I am personally experiencing the value of multiple generations in the same space with my elder son moving back home and my mother-in-law choosing to stay with us – it is crazy and chaotic and quite a madhouse, but so much better for it. And we confront the outcomes of 8 million graduates entering the Indian job market every year with the Marxian adage ‘unemployment is the luxury of the bourgeoisie’ staring at them in the face – of a vibrant scamming sector, of young people moving to war zones in search of work, and of the economy descending into a ‘k-shaped’ growth model with increasing inequality.
But I question whether they collectively make a sufficient case for entry-level hiring, especially for individual firms in competitive sectors confronting a juggernaut in the form of AI? ‘Why should the onus of issues such as future leadership and societal good, blah, blah, blah, fall upon us,’ they would say, ‘when our survival depends upon the health of the next two quarters’ financial performance?’
So – where does the onus lie?
I don’t have an answer. But I do know that muddling along on this matter with our heads in the sand is unwise. Because history does have an answer to what happens when there is a bulge in the population of young people with little to do – they are culled via war.
