Emergent technologies, what next?

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way–in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only. ~?A Tale of Two Cities

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Much as Charles Dickens had said this in the 1800s, these words still fit in contemporary context. More now than ever! I would add to say, that we live in interesting times as there are yet newer mysteries unfolding every day, in numerous spheres of life, at the fastest pace ever, in the history of time.?

Though on one hand, the world grapples with two ongoing wars and a third one likely in the near future on the other, yet juxtaposed, the world procreates, and population has crossed the 8.1 billion mark. One invariably wonders whether all these dreadful, man-made demons like climate change and war necessary? Could the world have been spared the ordeals? Could these calamities have been avoided? There was enough for every body’s needs then why in the name of Nationalism, Capitalism, Development & progress and Imperialism does humanity have to suffer. ?

Back home in a dramatic result, the 17th Lok Sabha has been elected, and we anxiously await new legislations and their implementation. How would the proposed agendas transform into policies?? How will the new government that has taken the oath of office in India, function or be able to function? Everything is wrapped in the folds of these interesting times. Because at the end of the day, it is policies that drive nations as also the world.

Hindsight is powerful, therefore, we certainly know that there has been rapid development in the technological and industrial world, to the extent of taking off on an auto evolutionary mode.

The advent of AI has yet again challenged our thinking faculty, though an ardent proponent of tech and associated benefits, my rational mind cannot help but deliberate about the times to come. GPT versions 3.0 and 4.0? are smarter than their previous generations, what next?

While on one hand, these emergent technologies have given ease and have enhanced the human comfort levels, yet they are scaring the life out of professionals as human efforts are losing relevance to the versatility of the AI. ?There was a time when we feared that the computer will take over our jobs but we warmed up to the idea that it was only a tool in smarter hands, and that technology is a good servant. But come to think of the fact that if smart technology, like the AI continues on this spree of self-improvement and evolution, in no time would the human world, whose intelligence wouldn’t match up to the exponentially evolving artificial intelligence, fall behind and become subservient to the machine. This seems to me a great existential crisis!

Are we not creating another Frankenstein? And we ask the same question again, who is the bigger monster, Victor or Frankenstein?

I am reminded of the invention of the atomic energy as also the plastic (bag). The utility of plastic products is undeniable, multipurpose, efficient and handy. ?However, its indiscriminate use has ruined our flora and fauna. It is crumbling our land and killing its fertility; it has ended in mountains of landfills and in the seas. Our animals are dying because of plastic ingestion and the environment is suffering the worst of greenhouse effects leading to climate change, it will not be? an exaggeration? to say that the world is ?choking and is on the brink of suffocation, thanks to plastic waste littered around us. According to a US study, the?total amount of plastic ever made is 8.3 billion tons.?By 2019, the world had produced 9.5 billion tons of plastic, which is more than one ton of plastic for every person alive today.?It is estimated that 75 to 199 million tons of plastic is currently in our oceans.

?World agencies like the UN have developed well-meaning SDGs (sustainable development goals) and good samaritans do follow, governments ask us to stop the usage of plastic yet the same agencies and governments do not stop the capitalistic world from the production of plastic materials and thus the world suffers ceaselessly.

Quite the same holds good for the world of AI, it is a whole new, emergent, and self-improving dimension of technology. We know we are benefitting from. However, there is a very thin line between our capacity of receiving and a point of no return.

There are many such questions that plague our mind, whether the development of the atomic and nuclear energy was necessary for progress of the world, is a debatable proposition.? Though on one hand being an atomic power is a security solution for nations, it has acted as a deterrent, it has prevented the escalation of wars, but the constant fear of it ending up in wrong hands looms large.? Similarly, we must know when to stall such tech development which challenges the very existence of the human race for if we didn’t, within no time it would be too late.

Industry giants like Microsoft, Google etc.? all tech companies must come together to take a concerted and unanimous call on the future of this all-new dimension of emergent technology, our future is dependent on policy decisions around AI and its development on an auto mode. Our benign constitutions propose duties only as a suggestion, there is no compulsion to ensure that we fulfil our obligations, thus the world over the majority practices entitlement to rights as against duties. Governments must introduce stringent policies to penalize the wrong doers, while the civil society must practice the harangued duties.

Somehow the solution, I feel, lies in world of academia which has to prepare students who will be facing the brunt of our poor judgement, they will have to deal with such disruption to keep the supremacy of our race. ?We are striving ardently to match up with the industry requirement as also equipping generations of students with value based and key survival skills, as Charles Darwin suggests, only the fittest would survive.

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