The Rise of AI - Ride the wave of AI

As we enter the beginning of November, we are now on the anvil of a closely fought U.S. elections with each unique result having its own geo political economic implications. Other headlines, which are attracting my eye balls are - Amazon’s spend of over $22 billion in the past quarter, a significant capital expenditure to keep pace with the AI rush clearly to provide for data centres and networking gear and hardware; Meta pushing a capital investment of $9.2 billion in the third quarter; promising trends with Microsoft clocking its annualised revenue from AI of $10billion; and going with the push for AI, one cannot ignore Amazon picking up stake in the US nuclear developer X energy (you know the reasons why)!

?

Unrelated but yet flooding the markets and sentiments are the recent reports and news around US economy adding just 12,000 new positions in the labour market in October much below the expectations – this possibly shows that there is a good enough reason to believe that the world of employment and human sourcing is not necessarily going to be the same!!! So, how are we bothered ?

?

While I try to provide a context, I believe many of you were not even born to witness the screeching dial-up tones and the perpetual risk of booting your family member off a phone call to just get online and search online!! Those who dismissed the internet as a "fad" quickly found themselves asking their grandkids how to "send an email." Fast forward to the cloud wave and am sure many of you would have crossed at least a few anecdotes on how files float in the sky : businesses that thought, "Why would we adopt cloud? " soon learned the hard way as competitors began accessing data anywhere, anytime, making them look like they were still in the '90s with their fax machines. I certainly believe that if history has taught us anything, it’s that tech waves wait for no one, so it’s time to grab your board and get ready for AI—or you’ll find yourself swimming just to stay afloat!

?

Lets get to the basics and the most talked about question – will AI make us redundant ? ?Lets answer this, before we get to the answers on how do we ride the wave !! Lets imagine an AI Bot of each one of us, which has access to all the knowledge we have gathered and more (obviously!!), has access to all the work we have done so far, studied all that we have shared in public and within the organisation…? will the Bot be as well or better than us to dispense off our existence and push us to face obsolescence! On the other hand, I believe that if the Bot does badly then it is also a reflection of us, isn’t it !!

?

From the periphery, I would say there are three dimensions that AI has an advantage over us – firstly on anything mechanical versus intuitive; secondly in rule based scenarios rather than principle based disciplines; thirdly in objective answers as against subjective judgements. So, the more mechanical, rule based and objective with lack of intuition and judgement, the faster is the threat to such jobs or professions!

?

It is thus imperative to then understand how one can make it more difficult to be dispensed off by AI and possibly here are three thoughts I believe can help in making us relevant –

?

1.??????? How can you be a generalist ? Multi domain expertise ? Being a super specialist—an expert in one narrow field—was once considered the pinnacle of career success. In today’s world, it is like being a one-hit wonder because AI excels in performing highly specialised tasks by learning them faster, cheaper and without coffee breaks. It can analyze data with laser focus or diagnose issues by the gigabyte, all while you’re still figuring out your lunch order. Compare that to a generalist – they are like the Swiss Army Knives of the workplace. Those with a comfortable grasp across multiple disciplines – can connect the dots – a dash of marketing, a touch of tech and a streak of psychology – which makes it difficult to replicate. While the super specialist may find their niche stolen by a friendly algorithm, the versatile generalist is too unpredictable, too human, and ultimately too essential to replace.

?

2.??????? The power of human reasoning is like having a secret superpower that robots can’t quite grasp—kind of like how your cat knows exactly when you’re opening a bag of chips but has no idea why you won’t share. While AI can process massive amounts of data, identify patterns, and even make predictions, it lacks the nuanced judgment that comes from true human reasoning. It can’t weigh ethical considerations, understand context, or question assumptions with the same depth. When faced with a complex decision—especially one that involves moral dilemmas, creative problem-solving, or human impact—reasoning enables us to look beyond algorithms, considering “why” something happens, not just “what” happened. Unmasking the philosophies across the world - be it Advaita, Greek, Buddhism – helps in sharpening the power of reason. In short, our capacity for reasoning keeps us flexible, thoughtful, and indispensable—qualities that an AI, for all its computing power, simply can’t emulate

?

3.??????? The mixture of generalist temperament and the power of human reasoning, makes it inevitable to unravel human creativity and that’s the secret sauce, the one ingredient AI just can’t seem to mimic, no matter how many terabytes it’s crunching. While AI can analyze millions of images or generate a catchy tune, but that true "aha!" moment—the one where a totally unexpected connection lights up your brain like a string of Diwali lights? That’s all us. It’s that split second where you realize that the solution to your design problem might actually lie in a random childhood memory or pop up during an afternoon nap. An algorithm is far too busy following the rules. The sharpening of such creative skills starts with staying connected with one self, immerse the self in complete focus and ultimately even disconnect from the digital world

?

So to summarise, how do these translate into our life. Here I would say, it is about making sure you don’t restrict yourself or box yourself into the hardcore technicalities of your job. Go beyond the programming and coding to understanding the functionality and onward to understand the business and ahead into the ecosystem and get a macro picture. The ability to zoom in and zoom out is extremely critical not just as a one off engagement but in building reasons and thereby ensuring creative solutions to problems emerge

?

As we wrap up this exploration of AI, let’s take a moment to appreciate that the other faculties of sciences are making equal progress and it is now a world were brain cells are grown in Petri dishes and being integrated with AI to bring “organoid intelligence” into existence. It makes you wonder if today’s AI is just the tip of the iceberg, and if the real fun (or existential dread) begins once humanoid robots start roaming around!! While we ponder over whether such existence has consciousness or is a sentient being and whether it will happen in our life times, humanity is working feverishly to conquer aging and “redefine” life spans. ?Who knows how longer our "lifetime" really is!! But that’s a philosophical rabbit hole for another day. For now, let’s enjoy being smarter than our Roombas—while it lasts!

?