Firstly I would like to thank our President of Behbood The Society Mr. Vachan Anand Sir for recommending me such a great book, "21 Lessons for the 21st Century". I have just started reading it and have completed a lesson and that lesson made me think about it and now I am writing about the same.
The following lines from the book are really amazing: -
We, humans, have learned to control the world outside us, but we had very little control over the world inside us. We knew how to build a dam and stop a river from flowing, but we did not know how to stop the body from ageing. We knew how to design an irrigation system, but we had no idea how to design a brain. If mosquitoes buzzed in our ears and disturbed our sleep, we knew how to kill mosquitoes; but if a thought buzzed in our mind and kept us awake at night, most of us did not know how to kill the thought.
Also we, humans, are too good at inventing and discovering technologies and things. We have discovered things like AI (Artifical Intelligence) which works and react like humans, blockchain a system in which a record of transactions made in bitcoins or another cryptocurrency are maintained across several computers that are linked in a peer-to-peer network. And also the revolutions of biotech and infotech will give us control of the world inside us. We can learn how to design the brain, extend lives and also how to kill the thoughts that are disturbing us. But none of us are aware of the consequences. As per the author of the book, "Yuval Noah Harari", humans were always far better at inventing tools than using them wisely. It is easy to construct a dam than to predict all the consequences this will have for the wider ecological system. Similarly, it will be easy to kill the thoughts that are disturbing us than to divine what it will do to our personal psychology.
We are too forward in inventing and discovering things that we are being blind when it comes to knowing the consequences. Let me talk about AI and Blockchain. There are a lot of automated restaurants or robotic restaurants around us. As per an article in The Guardian the British daily newspaper, restaurants are now employing robots which means human jobs are in danger. According to a report by Chloe Taylor a News Assistant at CNBC, "Robots could take over 20 million jobs by 2030, study claims". Researchers predicted the rise of robots will bring about benefits in terms of productivity and economic growth, they also acknowledged the drawbacks that were expected to arise simultaneously. Researchers suggested that governments could incentivize companies and workers with financial benefits for engaging in local programs to retrain workers. They also called on policymakers to develop “aggressive, forward-thinking programs” to counteract the negative impacts of automation.
Blockchain is a system in which a record of transactions made in bitcoins or another cryptocurrency is maintained across several computers that are linked in a peer-to-peer network. Though they are having a good amount of benefits, it is complex technology. Transactions are not made in monetary forms, so they might completely revamp the monetary system.
These technological revolutions might make our lives easy and better but AI might soon push billions of humans out of the job market and create a massive new useless class. And also when we learn how to control the world outside us and inside us, we should also learn to predict the possible consequences and ways to control it in time.
"Success in creating AI would be the biggest event in human history. Unfortunately, it might also be the last, unless we learn how to avoid the risks".
-Stephen Hawking
Beautiful words❤
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