Man and Superman: India’s Prospects in the Age of AI (Part 4)

A parallel revolution will take place in education. Today, the world struggles with finding good teachers to educate children, young adults, and even adults because so much is changing and continuous education is essential to staying on top of one’s profession.

We’re definitely moving toward AI-enabled personalized tutoring at all levels now. ALL students – even those who are below average – with the help of personalized tutoring – will perform at an above average level.

And because this is ALSO a technology-driven solution, it is completely scalable.

You don’t understand how to solve an algebra equation? No problem. Here, your AI tutor can work with you for a half an hour and give you personalized practice. By the time the tutoring session is over, your confidence and self-esteem would have sky-rocketed.

You don’t speak English? Okay, let’s do the session in Bengali. No problem.

Oh, and do you want to learn English? Your AI tutor will also take care of that.

ALL this will happen in the next couple of decades.

In fact, the Ramakrishna Mission schools and hospitals should put in place a comprehensive AI strategy in collaboration with the technology companies working on these problems.

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Now, in parallel with advances in Healthcare and Education, AI transplants and human augmentation technology will also advance. Gene editing technology will advance. Humanity’s fast path into supermanhood will accelerate. Let’s say, around 2050, human history will start to bifurcate into Man and Superman.

There is a moral question we MUST contend with in this evolution: who gets to upgrade to Superman? And who gets left behind as Man? Man will become extinct. So, the ethical answer to this question is humanity must find a way to upgrade all 10 billion humans on the planet to Superman.

No one must get left behind.

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Now, if you are like me, you are wondering how do we afford all this? Great, AI doctors, AI surgeons, AI tutors can infiltrate society. But who pays for all this technology? How would the Economics of AI-driven education and healthcare work?

And, who pays for 10 billion people to be upgraded into superman?

The answer to this question takes us back to my 2016 talk on the Future of Capitalism. Do you remember that I predicted that Capitalism will be dead in the face of a society run by AI?

I stand by that conclusion. 

There is going to be an enormous boost in productivity in large enterprises with the insertion of AI into every function from manufacturing to logistics to financial services. This is going to yield immense profits. 

And those profits would have to be taxed heavily to offer large scale societal benefits. This is Socialism. This is redistribution. And it will have to happen. Otherwise, there will be social unrest, there will be crime.

If I had any doubt about the future of Capitalism in 2016 or 2019, in 2023, I have none. Capitalism will be dead. The time has come for Socialism. Otherwise, society will spin out of control.

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Note one thing, however. There is a difference between Socialism and Communism. In Communism, the state takes away the rights of free press, individual property rights, freedom of speech, etc. that are all important tenets of democracy. Socialism offers universal education, universal healthcare, even universal basic income, but does NOT withdraw individual rights. And it certainly doesn’t destroy democracy.

Unfortunately, in 2023, survival of democracy can no longer be taken for granted. Whether it is Communism or Fascism, democracy is under threat.

This segment is part 4 in the series : Man and Superman: India's Prospects in the Age of AI
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