RGV says NEET debate futile, warns AI will make degrees ‘mere papers’
Ram Gopal Varma argued in a post on Monday that AI, not NEET, is the bigger crisis for students. He said the old education model is collapsing as degrees, ranks and entry-level jobs are losing relevance.
Filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma has weighed in on the ongoing debate over NEET, arguing that the real crisis facing students is not the medical entrance exam but the rapid rise of artificial intelligence. In a strongly worded post on X, he said that while the controversies surrounding NEET highlight a troubled education system, AI threatens to fundamentally reshape the future of learning and employment.
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Referring to the NEET paper leak, canceled exams and student suicides, Verma said these incidents reflect a system under pressure, but he stressed that these pale in comparison to the disruption brought by AI. According to him, the education system was designed for an era when knowledge was scarce and students were groomed for predictable careers – a reality he believes no longer exists.
AI has destroyed security: RGV
Sharing his views, Verma wrote, “NEET is not the issue. AI is.” He said the NEET leak, canceled exams and student suicides will leave “bodies lying on the floor and parents screaming”, but AI “does not wound the system. It strangles it.”
He further argued that no one can accurately predict what children will need to learn today to prepare for the world 10 or 20 years from now because fixed knowledge is becoming obsolete and technical skills are already “on the verge of death”.
According to him, information is no longer scarce but a heady mix of facts, misinformation and propaganda, while AI can process that information far faster than any human.
Verma also said that the long-held belief that studying hard once guarantees security throughout life has been broken by AI. In his view, the ability to remember numbers, degrees and facts no longer has the same value. Instead, he argued, the ability to continually adapt, learn, and reinvent oneself will determine success in an AI-driven world.
Using an engaging metaphor, Verma compared the classrooms, curriculum and entrance exams to the furniture inside a house that is already on fire, with people still arguing over where to place the chairs. He claimed that learning to use AI is now the only education that really matters, while traditional business courses risk becoming outdated.
RGV warned students
He warned that students studying in engineering, medicine, law, chartered accountancy, MBA, architecture, design and other professional programs could end up in what he described as an “AI slaughterhouse”. By the time they graduate, many of those degrees may lose value as AI systems take over the jobs they were designed to fill, he said.
Verma further argued that AI may soon allow one person to do the work of many professionals. He said a person using AI could diagnose diseases, draft legal contracts, design systems, audit accounts, write code and analyze data more efficiently than teams of traditionally trained experts.
He questioned the future of students spending four to six years gaining expertise in a single subject when they would eventually be able to compete with someone using AI to perform multiple roles at a lower cost and greater speed.
Read his full post here:
The filmmaker also claimed that “every tech leader in the world” has already announced the end of entry-level jobs.
Concluding his post, Verma said that students whose curriculum does not actively teach them to work with AI are being groomed for jobs that no longer exist. He said parents who continue to judge their children’s future only on the basis of ranks and degrees are “destroying their future”, while teachers defending the old curriculum are contributing to the decline of careers.