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New technologies are the result of years of toil by multiple individuals and institutions for the greater good of mankind. Such technologies advance human comfort, reach, longevity, to summarise – empowering tomorrow today. The faster we adopt and adapt to new technologies, the higher the benefits.
Consider a few examples. Luggage bags became wheeled, making it easier to travel forward, literally. It temporarily rendered porters irrelevant. The entire horse carriage industry was thrown out with the advent of motor vehicles. Mankind benefitted with faster and higher capacity transportation. Computerised railway reservation systems took away lakhs of jobs, and simultaneously did away with queues and the need to travel to the ticket windows. Banking operations, equity trading, on line learning are the benefits of modern day telecommunications.
Each change, has led to higher productivity, higher efficiency and lesser errors. In the instance of airplanes as also ship movement, automation has meant less number of accidents, less number of disasters.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) too needs immediate acceptance, adoptation and adaptation to benefit and stay on the path of progress. AI will change the way the world makes progress because it is going to impact each and every function of the planet, significantly enhancing human productivity and efficiency across a wide range of domains.
AI has raised the bar where humans will have to keep pace and adapt at a much higher intellectual level. The probability of adapting and benefitting from AI is significantly high. New skills will be needed to work with the new technology. Information-processing technologies, robotics and autonomous systems, energy generation, storage, and distribution, as well as new materials and composites, would be intellectual skills in demand. With significant changes in skills, expertise in talent management, teaching and mentoring, and self-motivation will be crucial.
No individual or institution has a road map of the path that AI will take into the future. The fear that all things significant to mankind might become mathematical and mechanical are real. A simple case that comes to mind is that AI would prefer to know individuals by numbers instead of by names In that sense, AI certainly has enormous disruptive power. Phanish Puranam of INSEAD, in his book Re-Humanize, asserts that, for long enough time, AI will support rather than replace human beings—a state he calls “bionic.” It is therefore important to incorporate , to build the emotion and the empathy modules into the AI infrastructure.
In attempts to predict AI’s trajectory, it is often assumed that human intelligence will remain static. The unique thinking and organizational capabilities endowed to humanity will find ways to improve life and create meaningful work. The productivity gains from new technologies can dramatically enhance our quality of life.
AI will take over jobs like ‘computer coding’ that were traditionally considered uniquely human. Yet, AI will result in a net gain of more than 7 crore jobs as per The World Economic Forum’s January 2025 report.
Traditional jobs will be lost and new jobs which require expertise in AI and big data, networks and cybersecurity, along with soft skills such as creative thinking, resilience, flexibility, curiosity, lifelong learning, leadership, and social influence. Problem identification, analysis and project formulation will be sought after skills.
All negative impacts of technology are on account of misuse and not on account technology per se. If cell phones have become an addiction – it is on account of lack of discipline and blaming the technology would be regressive.
In his TED Talk “Let’s Teach for Mastery,” Sal Khan has explained how human skills can be developed—and technology can certainly aid and accelerate that development. All of this should make us optimistic about the future of humanity, where AI will prove to be more of a boon than a bane. Of course, realizing this future will not be easy; leaders in every field will have to work diligently and responsibly to bring about necessary changes.
Author – Dr. Pradeep Waychal
– Founder and Managing Trustee – Guruji Education Foundation.
- B Tech – COEP- Pune , M-Tech – IIT, Double PhD – IIT Mumbai and Delhi, MA –Phycology –IGNOU.
These pieces are being published as they have been received – they have not been edited/fact-checked by ThePrint.