NEET Is Not the Issue, AI Is: RGV Says Degrees Will Soon Be Worthless

Filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma has once again set social media ablaze, but this time it isn't about cinema. The maverick director has triggered a massive online debate by claiming that the real crisis facing students isn't NEET, but artificial intelligence, which he believes is on the verge of making traditional degrees, entrance exams and even entire professions obsolete. His explosive X thread has gone viral, with thousands debating whether he is sounding an alarm or predicting the inevitable.

Calling NEET controversies "a distraction," Varma argued that paper leaks, cancelled exams and even the heartbreaking student suicides dominating headlines are symptoms of a broken education system, but AI is the force that will completely rewrite it.

" NEET is not the issue. AI is," Varma declared. He added that while exam scandals leave "bodies on the floor and parents screaming," AI "does not wound the system. It rips its throat out."

According to the director, India's education model was designed for a world where information was scarce and careers followed predictable paths. That world, he says, has already disappeared. With AI capable of generating, analysing and processing information within seconds, memorising textbooks and chasing ranks no longer guarantee success.

Varma argued that no one today can accurately predict what children should study to stay relevant a decade from now. He said technical skills are already entering their "death throes" because AI is evolving faster than universities can redesign their syllabi.

In one of the most striking parts of his post, the Satya filmmaker compared today's education system to " arguing over where to place chairs inside a house that's already on fire." He insisted that discussions over syllabi, entrance exams and classroom reforms are meaningless unless education is rebuilt around AI.

The filmmaker didn't stop there. He warned students pursuing engineering, medicine, law, chartered accountancy, MBA, architecture and design that they could graduate into a world where AI performs much of the work they spent years preparing for.

Varma painted a future where a single AI-powered professional could diagnose illnesses, draft legal agreements, write software, audit financial statements, analyse massive datasets and design complex systems, replacing teams of specialists. He questioned whether spending four to six years mastering one profession would still make economic sense.

He also echoed a growing concern within the global technology industry that entry level jobs are disappearing first as companies increasingly automate repetitive tasks with AI. Industry leaders including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, NVIDIA chief Jensen Huang and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei have repeatedly said AI will dramatically reshape white collar work, although they argue new roles will also emerge alongside the disruption.

Ending his post on a provocative note, Varma warned that colleges failing to teach students how to effectively use AI are preparing them for careers that may not exist by the time they graduate. He also criticised parents who continue to judge success solely through marks, ranks and degrees, saying they are "killing their children's future," while teachers defending outdated curricula are helping accelerate the decline of traditional careers.