WHO IS MORE IMPORTANT: VISIONARY WRITERS OR TECH GEEKS?

DR. ASOKE K. LAHA
Chairman-Emeritus and Founder, InterraIT

Peeping through the past from the context of the present and visualizing the future is my pastime. I often wonder how the three trajectories of time curiously differ from each other. Yet, there is an organic connection among the three because the present, devoid of the glory of the past and excitement of the future, may be a stale exercise. Every incident in the present should have a past linkage and should present a vision for the future.

I am reminded about a word that is apt in the present context: leitmotif. It is used mostly as a recurring musical phrase associated with a particular person, place, or painting. It is believed to be borrowed in English from German or Italian, where the word is used to convey more or less the same meaning. Imported into painting, the word conveys the idea of a canvas where the painter draws a picture repeatedly, and each successive painting will have a connection with the previous one. I do not want to go further on this word since stretching too much on its abstract meaning can take us to different paradigms.

I thought of meddling with how the mainstream thought process worked over the last five decades or so, and what it covered and what it portends. Before that, let me set the context. I am tracing what was the vogue in the public discourse in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. I am basing my observations on what I heard in the public forums, much before the words like Artificial Intelligence, robotics, etc, were not in currency and were in the embryonic stage in the fertile minds of their originators. Talk on technology and radical changes that can script in human civilization was limited among the scientists and people of that ilk. Such talks never fired the imagination of the common man or even to reasonably educated people. Technology was limited at best to the basic computers, cameras, etc.

My take is that in the informed forums in the past, the popular talks revolved around development of economics and how fast the growth can be achieved. I can recall eminent people talking about Limits to Growth, a document brought out by the Club of Rome in the early 1970s that discussed the consequences of exponential economic and population growth based on computer simulation. Hardly is there any meeting where policy makers and economists assembled that would have ended with a reference to that seminal book. Repeated use of that book even reminded me of people using it as a fad or an exhibitionist outburst to join the so-called knowledge club.

Years later, I recalled the reference to another seminal creation, Megatrends, which is often associated with the American author John Naisbitt, released in 1982. The book identified 10 trends that could radically change human lives and global economics. It also discussed shifts in technology and demographics. I cannot recall how many times the book has been referred to, and articles and discussions around that theme. Without a reference to the book, was an anathema to public discourse.

Let me also flag a few blockbusters of the present day that leave many wondering about the future of technology. A good number of them are about sweeping shifts in technology and how it is going to impact human history. To make the article brief, let me not mention the titles or the authors, but broadly the subject matter.
The book on Quantum Supremacy refers to the point where a quantum computer can solve a problem that is impossible for classical computers to solve in a reasonable amount of time. It signifies a milestone in quantum computing, demonstrating the potential of quantum machines to outperform traditional computers in specific computational tasks.

Bill Gates and Elon Musk, two techie giants, predict that most of the work that humans are doing now will be done by robots and machines run by AI. Now, techies are talking about a brain and AI interface wherein people affected by paralysis can function normally with the help of AI-driven technology that can send signals to the brain. Amidst all these developments, there are talks about AI and ethics, wherein technocrats and social scientists are trying to draw a line to delineate the extent AI should play. Should AI become the superpower, making human beings lotus eaters, seems to be the point of their heated discussion. Are they proposing a limit to technological growth? Yet, the quest for new technologies and concepts continues unabated, even to the extent of double talk by the proponents of ethics.

Let me flag what I find difference between the narration of the old authors and the present one. The writers of yesteryear were writing about what they perceived the world would be like. There was imagination and subjectivity in their narration. It was mostly like an economic theory, depending on assumptions and presumptions. There were only elements of possibility and fell short of certainty. When the Club of Rome predicted that population growth and consumption patterns are linked, I do not know whether they had seen the possibility of radically increasing grain productivity through the use of technology. Predictions of Megatrends were based on certain assumptions and trend analysis carried out in certain situations.

But predictions of a leap of technology are not made by visionaries who are imbued with a figment of imagination. They are made by technocrats themselves, and that way, there is a higher degree of certainty. Bill Gates, who forecast that 90% of the work done by human beings can be replaced by AI, is not a fiction writer, unlike George Orwell of 1984 fame. Elon Musk, who has gigantic plans to cut short travel time using space shuttles, is a person who pioneered Starlink and that way, made breakthroughs in the telecom sector. When he says that the distance between New York and Beijing can be covered in half an hour using space shuttles, we are not listening to Jules Verne, the famous science fiction writer who centuries ago predicted that man would set foot on the moon. Their predictions are backed by scientific proof and powered by the use of technologies. Nobody can question its possibility.

Does it mean that our assessment of the future and possibilities is clearer than ever before? I feel it is so because technology has made many things possible that were impossible ever before. That also instructs us to draw a line between technology and man. The paradigm that it is the man behind a technology and without him, technology cannot exist, is not the last word. Technology can be manipulated by vested interests who will have an axe to grind. Does it mean we have to focus more on technology and man? Yes, we should: a firewall or a check point or a buffer between the two is absolutely important.