Man and Superman: India’s Prospects in the Age of AI (Part 5)

Does AI aid this threat, or can it hinder its nefarious progress? Let us contemplate the issue.

The primary tool of politics is the Narrative. The story. Example: Donald Trump’s declaration that the election has been stolen from him is a story that he has successfully sold to the American electorate. 

Unfortunately, AI has put unprecedented capacity in the hands of politicians to distribute whatever narrative they wish to propagate. Whatever hate they want to fan. And with this extraordinary capacity, propaganda machines are actively destroying balanced, centrist societies, replacing them with extremist populist masses whose general state of being is anger and hatred.

Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, YouTube are each full of propaganda and they will continue to be so. AI gives these platforms great ability to galvanize large masses of people around simplistic storylines.

So, from the benevolent prospects of AI like universal education and healthcare, we have arrived at the prospect of communism and fascism. Unfortunately, India is not immune to this threat.

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The other dangerous prospect is the threat of war. As we can see, conflict between sovereign nations is suddenly back with a vengeance. The Russia-Ukraine war is still happening in somewhat old-fashioned ways. Drones are the extent of AI truly in action.

But in the upcoming decades, war is also going to change into AI warfare. A sovereign nation wanting to wield power over another can use AI to destroy a banking system. Or a power grid. Or, in India, Aadhaar for instance. 

How is India going to defend itself if such an attack is launched by another foreign power?

AI warfare has two aspects: Offense and Defense. India has thus far not been an offensive country. It doesn’t go around attacking neighbors to gain territory. But India’s neighbors tend not to be as benign.

For decades, India has learnt to coexist with a nuclear power across its border. Within reason, all nations have behaved with restraint.

But AI is a different animal. While Nuclear technology is expensive and esoteric and only very few know how to work it, AI is widespread. In the upcoming decades, it will become even more widespread. Even more democratized in access and in usability. And then, everyone from little terrorist organizations to entire sovereign nations would be tempted to play with it.

This is a real danger. And unlike nuclear disarmament, AI disarmament is an unlikely scenario. 

Many thought leaders also worry about what a superior intelligence would do on its own. Is humanity creating a Frankenstein-like monster that we could lose control over? This is certainly a concern in the long term.

In the short term, however, AI in the hands of bad actors is a bigger and more immediate concern.

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Before I switch gear to another major topic, I want to address an inevitability that we’re headed towards. It is something I expressed concern about in my 2016 talk. A post-work society is about to become reality by mid-century. How do we function in that world order?

Let us assume the best case scenario of universal basic income, universal education, universal healthcare, universal artificial augmentation once that becomes available. In other words, universal species-level enhancement from Man to Superman. 10 billion Superhumans roaming the planet by the end of this century.

But.

This segment is part 5 in the series : Man and Superman: India's Prospects in the Age of AI
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