THE FUTURE IS FASTER THAN WE THINK
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An Article dedicated to my dear College Friend Rashid (Baba) Kidwai- who passed away quietly at his Delhi home a few days ago. Baba was the most complete human being I have known & seen to marvel. And if more people were like him, our scientists, politicians and policy advocates would not be creating Artificial Intelligence as they do now to compensate for our human incompetence. My friend was like the proverbial Bumble Bee- He had never shown an urge to fly but fly he did, mesmerizing all who came in touch with him & making them all fly higher like Jonathan Livingstone Seagull.’
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An article also dedicated to Scientist Ray Kurzweil & his Researchers
Key Words: – Cooperation-Personal Revenue Improvement Programs (PRIPs)-General Revenue Improvement Programs (GRIPs)-Indian Ruing Elite- Our PM &CMs- Ray KURZWEILAI.netNEWS-Artificial Intelligence (AI)-the Useless Class.
This Article has three aspects, inter-mixed with one another. a) Artificial intelligence b) Current situation of the Indian peoples & c) What is the future of India? – meshed into an article, linked to current crazy times. The only component emerging is the urge to have Homosapiens with cooperation and collaboration exhibited in their behaviours with genuine feelings, values, vision and self-image for the community.
Since last March 2020, in 24X7 WFH-confinement, most of us are experiencing robotic sensitivity within and among people around. Deep-rooted psychological constraints have disrupted individuals & family lives past one year. Parents are getting used to migrant children. Working Adults are on WFH with parents. Deaths and incapacitation everywhere! Few of us have realised cooperating like ants are the only solution to sane survival. But in a globalized, aspiring world, such a thought process is altogether alien.
Within India the disparities in education, earnings/income & cultural cum moral degeneration encouraged by a mismanaging Indian Ruling Elite since 1947, has created millions of Indians who have mentally withdrawn from reality into fantasy. We have pockets of ITeS educated elite, pockets of pensioned elderly and millions of lumen elements-the Useless Class. The legacy of an indefinable “secular development” has translated our personalities into a combination of sincere deceivers and helpless/powerless individuals without nationalistic choices when confronted with critical options. We are committed to personal revenue improvement programs (PRIPs) Sapiens; diametrically opposite to the general revenue improvement program (GRIPs) Sapiens Yuval Noah Harari is yearning for…And such is the tragic-comedy of being Indian in 21st Century.
It is ridiculous therefore to imagine our Indian Leaders will be displaying qualities that are anti-thesis to aforesaid PRIPs orientation. By nature, we Indians always refuse to take decisions unless the suffering is manifold as happened before 1947. We had a leader then who felt the pulse of the people and nudged them forward as he did. In 2021, I sure miss M.K. Gandhi. I miss him not because I believe in his total approach but because I believe he understood the Indian psyche in totality and the people then responded in kind. If he were alive, the moral intonation of his behaviour could have motivated Indians at the grass root levels to correct themselves. Such a leader could have penetrated into rural interiors to urge the villagers into Satyagraha, beating the challenge of Social Media, which is grilled with divisive innuendos.
We lack an alternative to the weakened Federal Structure controlled by PRIP oriented State Warlords. Not that these great leaders are bad human persons and mean unwell. On the contrary, they display remarkable qualities of oratory which, mainly for bad and sometimes for good, impact the emotional response from simple citizens at times of elections. Unfortunately, this Covid pandemic & Disaster Management crisis from 2020 has confirmed to many erudite Indians that our leaders have a very wide, wide gap in their chronological and psychological ages. Our pre-1947 Freedom Fighters did not have this shortcoming at all. What they had in common was a unified desire for struggle. What is missing today is that divinity among leaders that flashed with Gandhi’s assassination and remained flickering ever since as an unattended casserole for some well-cooked Indian dish. Unlike China, the Indian Ruling Elite has multi-dimensional capabilities to move away from nationalistic aspirations.
State of Mind of our 2021 Indian Leaders
The current behavioural disconnects we see in our leaders performing within the weakened Federal Structure are asymptomatic of the unique anti-growth virus variant that grips all our political leaders and their parties. There are exceptions in this contemporary Parliamentary dynamics like Ms. Mohua Moitra, Shashi Tharoor & few others – who within their bounded rationalities represent the dwindling Indian middle class. They speak with commitment, conviction & sync with all that the Founding Fathers could imagine. But they have only a minimalistic impact.
The other leaders are good people but committed to street fights against one another than uniting in crisis for the peoples of India. India is a classic example of too many cooks spoiling the broth. It is very apparent we are propelled more by personal revenue improvement programs (PRIPs). Like their political, academic and social leaders, we are not fine-tuned to seeing the wider picture of general revenue improvement programs (GRIPs). We have no comprehension of economics in its implementation for the greater good. Because by the time a GRIP-oriented bill is passed in Parliament, there are divisive forces up against it. The BJP has done this; the Congress and Opposition do the same but in the corridors of Parliament, they complement one another for good oratory. They do not realise their complacency & misplaced priorities say in defence over health care, causes the nation dearly. We have no output in core sectors. We have become impalpable- vague and ethereal animals.
I am motivated to write on “Cooperation” based on the behavioural inconsistencies I see in units of families, communities, leaders and social media culminating with the 2021 electoral dynamics in my country. I do not exclude myself at all from erratic behaviour. Thought behavioural inconsistencies are bound to happen, it can be moderated and regulated under a collaborative (community oriented) Umbrella. For example, differences in Centre-State Relations are bound to happen: – Much like differences between parents, within families and in institutions. The trouble is today we are having more divorces, disorientations and insidious education than ever before. Behaviour of parents, teachers and children need to be analyzed in context of future ever-emerging crisis. Climate change and Covid are just two critical instances. Similarly the responsibilities of our elected leaders to carry out envisaged constitutional guidance enshrined in our Federal Structure stand for scrutiny. The psychological ages of our leaders need be re-examined. These are not times for intellectualism. And all of us seem to be in a stuck state of suspended animation.
Perhaps using the word ‘nation’ is inappropriate in the circumstances. ‘Indian Peoples’ is a much better description. Over the years individuals, families and communities have been reduced to penury. Earning members have died. Children have been orphaned. The two cyclones in the Western and Eastern states of India have inflicted havoc to millions of people. The nation is living in small birdcages called houses, slums, hutments or multi-storied buildings for months in semi-Lockdown conditions. Circumstantially this appears to be in alignment with the restrictions imposed. But in times of crisis, it is left to the individual to provide self-leadership. Sadly India has not emerged with a group of leaders, who may think differently politically but can be united in common action for the peoples’ welfare. To add salt to a bleeding wound, for 74 years our ruling elites have been unable to discipline the nation. Hence moment the governments announce lifting of lockdown, people gather in droves in central plazas and boulevards to celebrate. When Covid deaths occur, people demand compensation from the government, which dithers but succumbs! This is the enactment of our 74-year-old evolved democracy.
So sometimes we hear Covid has been conquered in important Forums shown by Social Media. Then we find ourselves cooped up again in houses; freedom impounded & fenced in as the 2nd Wave unfurled. Now we apprehend an imminent 3rd Wave by November 2021! Meanwhile, our Prime Minister and State Chief Ministers are running from pillar to post, assuaging public opinion, and vehemently disagreeing with one another which are adding to public confusion. No leader comes across with empathy for the state of confusion in the peoples’ minds. But the people do not anymore?
The System has been ingeniously codified in unique Indian Ruling Elite massaged trajectories which espouse living in a mystic world of peace and tranquillity. At no point since February 2020 till date have we come across a leader who is genuinely empathising with us as he /she holds forth in TV Channels, Election Rallies and “Mann ki Bats”. I am NOT deriding their intentions; I am pointing out their unawareness of their lack of situational coherence and that appropriate leadership. Covid pandemic offers a rare opportunity of drilling in the need for self-discipline and collaboration. If we do not act now, this same ‘comprador’ Ruling Elite will take compound advantage of the emerging Artificial Intelligence to its own advantage. The Useless Class- the Indian Peoples- will then be asked to toil in 21st century Gulag Archipelagos.
The Times they are a changing and Eleanor Rigby can’t quite anticipate the emerging paradigms, can she Mr. Jones?
Have we reached the JP Moment?
The date 5 June 1974 was a turning point in the history of the Bihar movement. Jayaprakash Narayan or JP gave a call for Sampoorna Kranti, or Total Revolution, at a massive rally in Patna on that day. Sampoorna Kranti became the rallying cry of the Bihar movement. Slogans like “Sampoorna Kranti ab naara hai, bhavi itihaas hamara hai” reverberated during that famous challenge to Indira Gandhi that led to the Emergency and finally, the ballot revolution of 1977. Many of the current crops of ageing leaders had protested against JP Narayan those days. But they cannot pick up his mantle today!
In the midst of all this, while most States are reeling under pandemic blues, the peoples of West Bengal are stunned by one other kind of dynamics. The relationship between the State Chief Minister and the Nation’s Prime Minister is anything but cordial. Most of the Sunderbans is still flooded. People are living on inundated roads, eating off berries, dates and rotten pond water. This is based on newspaper reports of 31st May 2021. The Yaas Cyclone had lashed on 24th May 2021 three of India’s the Eastern States. But, given our aforesaid leaders’ relationship dynamics, we now realize we have to acclimatize to different types of cyclones. The Hindi movie “Article 15” has shown us that even at micro semi-rural, semi-urban geographical levels; our behaviours are conditioned by how the local leadership permits us to behave. Our secular lineage has cocooned us into a ‘secular’ groove. Within this groove, only petty politics is sine qua non.
Artificial Intelligence, Ray Kurzweil & his Researchers
Incidentally, Robots that are being developed to synergize our daily activities are designed differently to be productive automatically. And I shall be referring to Dr. Ray Kurzweil and his researchers. I have subscribed to AI Scientist Ray KURZWEILAI.netNEWS and I receive quarterly updates on AI innovation. Recently I received a detailed write-up on of how a team of computer researchers have developed AI software with social skills “called S Sharp (written S#) – that outperformed humans in its ability to cooperate. Contextual to this ‘myopic article’ of mine, the program was tested through a series of games between humans and AI software. The tests paired people with S# in a variety of social scenarios. One of the games humans played against the software is called ‘the prisoner’s dilemma.’ This classic game shows how 2 rational people might not cooperate — even if it appears that’s in both their best interests to work together. The other challenge was a sophisticated block-sharing game. Given the high Constitutional positions our PM and CMs hold, it is a wonderment why they do not think as inclusively as Dr. Kurzweil and his team? Our political leaders’ ineptitude may cost them dearly. Advantage Artificial Intelligence!
In most cases of the AI experiment, the S# software out-performed humans in finding compromises that benefit both parties. This project was helmed by 2 well-known computer scientists, Iyad Rahwan PhD (MIT) of, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Jacob Crandall PhD of Brigham Young Univ. The researchers tested humans and the AI in 3 types of game interactions:
> Computer – to – computer: human– to – computer: human– to– human.
“Computers can now beat the best human minds in the most intellectually challenging games— like chess. They can also perform tasks that are difficult for adult humans to learn— like driving cars. Yet autonomous machines have difficulty learning to cooperate, something even young children do.”
Researcher Jacob Crandall
Without going into specifics, I seek to identify areas of behavioural discrepancies of our different leaders in a very broad manner. And to do so I wish to use the aforesaid AI experimental approach as a platform enabling my readers to feel the catastrophic disappointments of 74 years of experiential learning. It is no longer the ECONOMICS! It is the Brains that matter today! The logic of Dr. Kurzweil is my tool-kit!
The Jalianwalabag Massacre of 1919
Human cooperation appears easy — but it’s very difficult to emulate because it relies on cultural norms, deeply-rooted instincts, and social mechanisms that express disapproval of non-cooperative behaviour. For 74 years, Indians have not developed proactive cultural norms, deeply-rooted instincts, and social mechanisms. Covid pandemic is the first national emergency crisis. Sadly, so confident were our post 1947 leaders, in their enthusiasm they ensured our Constitution did not consider a medical/health emergency!
It is all the more imperative to have emotion linked to spiritual clarity if you are an Indian Leader. How can we identify these negatives in our PM of India & CM of West Bengal? Or for that matter any of our other CMs/Ministers/ Bureaucrats/Political Leaders who are linked with governance in India? After all we are living in a National Disaster Management Pandemic in 2021. And rich democratic traditions still prevail to enable asking these critical questions.
- Can we do mandated research on the respective cultural backgrounds of our leaders to decipher, from clinical studies, their deep-rooted instincts? Can someone do some work on these issues and ameliorate our Indian Peoples’ 74 years haunting disparaging leadership dilemma?
- A general model can be created which, much like the Rules & Regulations that govern the duties and responsibilities of Covenanted Officers, can be referrals for steering toward on-the-job responsibilities & decision making. This R&R can become a constitutionally validated document which, in view of erratic performances of our leaders, can become germane to our future policy decisions. In this way we can even upgrade our Constitution. We can also make our constitutional leaders more responsive and conscious of their responsibilities.
Alternatively, I do believe from 2021, we Indians have a choice between the Devil and Deep Sea!
Quite naturally, the Question has begun to be asked by many of India’s literati- if our Constitution or our political leaders in Parliament and Legislatures have out-lived each other. This non-cooperation between the sacred enshrined principles and the parliamentarians’ erratic behaviour cannot go on and on….either the leaders are correct or the Constitution is irrelevant. If Gandhi was alive today, he would ask similar questions. I believe we are in situation akin to those heroes and heroines who unambiguously fell to the bullets at Jalianwalabag in Amritsar on 13th April 1919. It was indiscriminate firing then when 1000s died; in 2021 it seems like a cumulative output of indiscriminate decisions converting into tragic killing fields.
The fact is Indian leaders have a tradition of non-accountability. They have survived for 74 years on simple peoples’ goodwill and their peaceful nature. And since our Constitutional procedures must be administered by human beings (till such time AI takes over our living processes completely!)- such humans- whether PM, CMs, Bureaucrats and Political Leaders or Academicians, Parents & Research Scholars- must realise their primary task is to cooperate among one another for the Peoples’ Betterment and enhance the Quality of Life Index. Only such refinement NOW may ensure the optimum utility of QLI under a futuristic Artificial Intelligence oriented Integrated Community Behaviour (ICB) hubs, which is perhaps decade away from 2021? The future is faster than we think!
QLI and Quality of Living Index
Quality of Life, by my reckoning, also includes Quality of Living. Unless our administrators and governors begin to think out of the box, there can be no resolution to the several unresolving conflicts. Lack of self-discipline and personal revenue improvement programs (PRIPs) escalate divisions in society. Our Federal structure demands cooperation. A few national issues, highlighted by Social Media that have caught my attention, not necessarily my support, are given hereunder that variously accentuate Peoples’ woes in 2021 :-
- Hindutva’s opponents, especially those who describe themselves as liberals, fail to understand the operative mechanism of Hindutva’s history. They envisage Hindutva’s project entirely as irrational, a historical and even unscientific exercise. An impression is created that the historical records are self-explanatory; hence the destruction and/or relocation of these sources would mean the destruction of historical knowledge. The Nehruvian project of history is appreciated as the most objective evidence-based version of India’s past on these grounds to refute Hindutva.
- On the recent quite unnecessary bureaucrat engineered conflict of interests between the Centre and WB Government over a Chief Secretary, it is apparent to all citizens that our political leaders have misplaced priorities even in disaster management times. As citizens died by the dozen all over India; 2 Supreme Heads of Federal Government communicated with each other…one verbally the media and the other non-verbally actions. Both were mutually dramatic but quite unnecessary and reinforces my contention on the gap between the chronological and psychological ages of Sapiens.
- Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, former Union home minister, was keen that covenanted services like the Indian Civil Service and the Indian Police, should also be created in independent India. He was of the view that ministers should receive free, frank and objective advice from the civil servants. The proposal was opposed by the prime ministers of the Provinces with apprehensions about the curtailment of their freedom. However, Patel vigorously pursued the subject and eventually persuaded them. The Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and the Indian Police Service (IPS) were deemed to be the services created by Parliament. India is the only federal or quasi-federal nation with such a unique structure.
- In addition to causing a humanitarian and economic disaster, the Covid-19 pandemic has also had strategic consequences. It has demonstrated the limits not only of India’s health sector but her ability to lead South Asia and raised China’s standing at India’s expense among some of its neighbours. Stories of inadequate facilities for patients, even in big cities across the Indian subcontinent, has highlighted South Asia’s healthcare crisis. But an even bigger story is how India, the largest country in the region, ended up having to receive assistance from Bhutan, the smallest member of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). South Asia is the least integrated region in the world, notwithstanding its pre-1947 status as a cohesive whole. The Covid pandemic and related disaster management issues perhaps demonstrate India’ Ruling Elite needs periodic PERT of its policies, aims and aspirations within South Asia.
- According to the All Indian Origin Chemists & Distributors (AIOCD)’s research wing (AIOCD-AWACS) — which represents more than 9 lakh pharmacists in India — the sale of the top five anti-depression drugs in the Indian market was Rs 177 crore in April 2020, which went up to Rs 218 crore in April 2021 — an increase of about 23 per cent. In comparison, the sale of these drugs in April 2019 was Rs 186 crore. This means from April 2019 to April 2020, there had been a drop of about five per cent in sales.
The above 5 issues are notional concerns and constraints. The ground reality is different. Many of us are so smitten by the tragedies unfolding since February 2020 (1st Wave, 2nd Wave…dead bodies in crematoriums, dead bodies floating in the Ganges & emerging 3rd Wave…), that our rational response has been to pretend it was not happening. We have shrouded ourselves in mystic divinity that we are so used to under inducements & encouragement to seek Divine Help without appropriate social practice (the typical bania approach?) since 1947 by our cycles of Ruling Elite. Is this a weakness? Unlike our Armed Forces training programs, the Indian political system has been unable to reinforce a similar disciplined community-led egalitarian approach with empathy from the grass-root panchyati raj upward. Ignoring the gist in Gandhi’s “Hind Swaraj”, our rulers have taught us to become divisively religious but never spiritually inclusive. We indulge in conspicuous consumption based on aspirations and less inspirations. Other than the existing struggles within rural communities and migrant labour from UP, Bihar, Jharkhand, WB & NE; the rest of us in urban and semi-urban areas are moulded in dreams of “comfort-zones”. Notwithstanding environment pollution and climate changes, our children are forgetting the basic values embedded in struggling to survive. Our peoples are not gathering the much needed immunities!
It is in this context that I wish to include the Future with Artificial Intelligence (AI) that is around the corner. This may be productive to the nation and hence for the Industrialists and their timid political leaders. But, given the esoteric and unfathomable urges of the current crop of undisciplined PRIP oriented Indians, AI can have devastating consequences in our quality of living.
Artificial Intelligence and the Emerging Indian Useless Class
The emerging AI dominance is unknown to the millions of simpler Indians (Useless Class?) who are eking out a daily living in our country. The moment their operations become AI manageable, will our Ruling Elite then throw them out with the bath-towel? What is the long-term perspective of India’s bania reinforced Ruling Elite on AI? All of us are living under flailing systems-where justice, education, essential services, health & security are each floundering. We are yet to live in a state of maximum governance with minimum government- a state of matured integrated community behaviour under multi-dimensional systems. Given our indecisiveness in pandemic times 2020-21, our leaders must reform themselves with the slapdash institutions they prevail upon with activity-based- costing imperatives. This is easier said than done but without proactive community discipline at the micro levels, our deep-rooted corruption cannot be wished away. Our minds need to be whitewashed!
Hence, all of a sudden, say ten years down the line (2031 to be precise) & suddenly out of nowhere, if our then political leaders impose the dynamics of AI technology to control citizens, how shall the people react in such an Animal Farm? Yuval Noah Harari apprehends a huge, huge “Useless Class” shall have to be managed under the AI technology. Must we leave the reaction on AI technology to human common sense that will be displayed then?
Each Ruling Class, if deprived of higher quality behavioural counsel, will systematically emerge to be even crueller than they are at present. There is inevitability in the march of history…our PM, CMs and all leaders must learn to cool down, use their wonderful brains and cooperate with one another. With overall K-shaped recovery being predicted, an united Indian Parliament has to manage economic variables, such as income across different segments of society or employment in different industries, relative to one another. This demands another form, focus and flow which have to be General REVENUE Improvement program oriented. . Unprepared as they have been with Covid pandemic, are our current leaders in Parliament and Legislatures at all mentally prepared to manage such variables then? Time is definitely not on their side in June 2021.
Common sense is a sense most uncommon to the common man. Common sense mechanisms aren’t easily built into machines either, says a Kurzweil Newsletter. In fact, the same AI software programs that effectively play the board games of chess + checkers, Atari video games, and the card game of poker — often fail to consistently cooperate when cooperation is necessary- much like Indian leaders in these pandemic blues!
Back to Dr. Ray Kurzweil & Cooperation within Federal India
Kurzweil Newsletter points out in its report that “other AI software often takes 100s of rounds of experience to learn to cooperate with each other if they cooperate at all. Can we build computers that cooperate with humans- the way humans cooperate with each other? Building on decades of research in AI, we built a new software program that learns to cooperate with other machines — simply by trying to maximize its own world. We ran experiments that paired the AI with people in various social scenarios — including a “prisoner’s dilemma” challenge and a sophisticated block-sharing game. While the program consistently learns to cooperate with another computer — it doesn’t cooperate very well with people. But people didn’t cooperate much with each other either.”
Our PM and CMs can cooperate better if they communicate their intentions through words and body language and not their egos. They have to LISTEN to each other not as they appear to be in present dynamics. Perhaps this is too much in expectations from Sapiens? Will they sustain to take us for a ride?
Notably, Kurzweil and his team went ahead to creating a program that consistently learns to cooperate with people — they gave their AI a way to listen to people, and to talk to them. “We did that in a way that lets the AI play in previously unanticipated scenarios. The resulting algorithm achieved our goal. It consistently learns to cooperate with people as well as people do. Our results show that 2 computers make a much better team — better than 2 humans and better than a human + a computer”.
Is there then an inevitability of the absolute failures in cooperation between our Constitutional Heads because generally speaking ‘humans just don’t seem to listen to each other’? Was Russell spot on in describing Sapiens as the cruellest animals; much as Einstein was right in asserting human stupidity is infinite? A peculiar management problem indeed! In the event AI is imposed onto Indian Society for want of any better option by 2031, what behavioural modifications shall citizens undertake- would it be much like living in current lockdown ‘security’? For thinking Indians, these are very soulful thoughts indeed for the now.
The historic computer scientist Alan Turing Ph.D. had believed machines could potentially demonstrate human-like intelligence, (perhaps better?). Since then, AI has been regularly portrayed as a threat to humanity or human jobs. Our Ruing Elite, given the bounded irrationality they live in, can and will take advantage of this possibility out of ignorance or choice. This is entirely due to the plasticity of their thinking patterns that have always been PRIP oriented. As Mr. Gurcharan Das commented in one of his many enlightening articles “Covid will be gone one day. But the citizen’s day-to-day misery, coping with rotten institutions, will remain.”
The fact remains our venerable PM, CMs & other leaders’ behavioural dynamics need to improve to become meaningful for our QLI. That Dr. Kurzweil & Associates’ created AI program which isn’t a blind co-operator is a fact. In fact, their AI can get pretty angry if people don’t behave well. To protect people, their programmers have tried to code AI to follow legal + ethical principles — like the 3 Laws of Robotics written by Isaac Asimov. “Our research demonstrates that a new path is possible”. But can Indian Ruling Elite program code their AI to follow only legal and never ethical principles?
The question is begged to be asked- are Indians in critical decision-making positions, capable of demonstrating Kurzwellian positive traits where they seriously consider legal + ethical principles in their behaviour? Behaviour is the sum of a people/community’s feelings, values, vision and self-image. The recent Covid related theatrics involving our leader’s complacencies in creating zero- results from indecisiveness may indicate AI is a better option than humans in multi-dimensional Management Programs.
AI Machines are designed to selfishly maximize their pay-offs where they are-as they should be- making autonomous choices to cooperate with humans across a wide range of situations. 2 humans- if they were honest with each other + loyal – would have done as well as 2 machines. Imagine these ‘2 humans’ as referred by Kurzweil, to be our PM and CM in the instant case. Most leaders, including I daresay our PM and CMs, are being constitutional as per their interpretations but not transparent. Which leads to the question that which is correct? – Our leaders or our Constitution? On the other hand, the Artificial Intelligence Kurzweil and his cooperating researchers are creating is under the aegis of learning that moral characteristics are better– since it’s programmed not to lie- and it also learns to maintain cooperation once it activates. Cannot members of our state legislatures and central parliament inculcate these traits as humans? Where and why have they lost their ways? How can we evolve a situation by which they are morally duty-bound to act prudently in the future?
Indeed the Future is faster than we think!
The nature of Kurzwellian research can immensely help us in India. The objective is to clearly understand the logic behind cooperating with people- the social skills and the Emotional Intelligence moving up to the Spiritual Intelligence levels. In fact, all our leaders must first undergo psychological tests before their candidature is accepted under a reframed Constitution. India must have a Master Plan of a mandated platform that attributes specific skill sets essential for leaders to build on social skills. As the Central Vista is being “rebuilt” today and a New Parliament Building accommodating more parliamentarians (based on increasing demographic trends) becomes operative, can we insist the Constitution of India must be recast in specific accountable areas linked to each Parliamentarian’s responsibilities to her constituency in particular and the nation in general? We cannot go on ridiculing our Constitution beyond 75 years and the legitimate aspirations of the Indian Peoples.
To my simplistic understanding, it is becoming increasingly evident that our Constitution or our Parliamentarians/ Legislators have outlived each other by 2021. And at a crisis time, where disaster management means Quick Response Time management, it is also the best time frame to review such “as-is: to-be” gap analysis. Dr. Kurzweil & Associates sustained research could help humans with their relationship management processes– an imminent need for accountability. Our PM and CMs and their respective Advisors, in ignoring the ethical connect, are actually publicizing a peculiar form of Federal Malaise perpetuating into our national politics. We must understand Ethics and Morals go hand-in-hand with Mother Earth. If we continue to ignore this reality we shall be jumping from one Disaster to another!
It is very true that families, communities and societies break down all the time. People that were friends for years all-of-a-sudden become enemies. In the national context, it is serious time our leaders understood that time is running out for all of us. Strangely enough, Kurzweil concludes: “Because the AI is often better at reaching these compromises than we are, it could teach us how to get along better”. Perhaps Gandhi was right all along- “the Earth has enough for our needs; not enough for our greed”.
This is a spiritual challenge in 2021 which can have been assuaged by a leader close to but not wholly like Gandhi. He had the knack, for some great unfathomable reason, to appeal to the core feelings of Indians before 1947. He had the divinity & Indian peoples peculiarly responded to this motivation very wholesomely. But Gandhi failed in giving India competent leaders, which is a separate issue altogether.
Therefore in 2021 it is realistic to be less inclined to believe in the Divine infallibility of being Indian. Leave this to the uneducated, impoverished at the very bottom of the rat hole Useless Class. But what about literate, well-established youth of India- who are at a higher level, stratospheric levels of the Useless Class- what are their options?
I go wholly with Mr. Shekhar Gupta when he cautioned “If you are another thin-skinned Indian nationalist, as most of us are, we have tougher questions staring at us. All I am trying to do is hold up the mirror to all of us. It’s the rear-view mirror, in fact. And repeat that awful old warning: Objects in the mirror are closer than they seem. Let’s see how.” And he goes on to show statistics that already 20 African sub-Saharan countries are richer than India on a per capita GDP basis. The pictures of bodies floating in our great rivers, he apprehends will become threatening to create the abiding image of a country of laggards by 2023. “This is the picture in the rear-view mirror that’s closer than it seems. Our mis-governance, lousy identity politics of caste or religion, corruption, fake socialism, corruption, self-congratulation, empty triumphalism, are catching up and ruining our self-image faster than we imagine. It’s a brutal, unforgiving world out there.” – Concluded Mr. Gupta in his article in the PRINT on 5th June 2021.
Conclusion
The three aspects discussed namely Artificial Intelligence, the current confusion among the Indian people, and the future of my glorious country have epicentre in the dynamic (mis) management of the Covid pandemic at the micro & macro levels by those leading India at this critical juncture. Are they capable of thinking vertically?
Calamity has devolved upon us in India. It began many years before Modi suddenly demonetised our lives for better or worse reasons than we realised then. If in 2020-2021 & beyond Covid variants are plaguing us, it is because time has arrived for Indians to think differently. The fair-minded among us need not worry; it is the evil-minded ones, the black marketers, the cringing traders, the touts in bureaucracy that have good cause to tremble. For time is running out.
Covid, like “The Plague” by Camus, is the curse of Mother Earth on us & India, in particular, is His threshing floor. As Camus foretold, implacably the Lord will thresh out His harvest until the wheat is finally separated from the chaff. This calamity has not been an act of God, and nor was the Jalianwalabag Bag massacre & others His acts before 1947 (as seen in the rearview mirror).
For too long this nation of ours has colluded with Evil in all walks of life involving the family, education, community living and national politics. Our leaders have sought recourse to Divine Mercy & taught us to do the same. For too long we have complied. But now we have lost even God’s compassion. He has grown tired of us and He has turned His face away from us. We walk in darkness. And instead of walking with the Lord, we walk with Covid & Death into an artificial induced Future that is faster than we think.
All tyrannies rule through fraud and force, but once the fraud is exposed they must rely exclusively on force.
George Orwell
Prof. Partho S. Sengupta from fringes of Calcutta!
Behavioral Sciences Area/Master – NLP Trainer/Practitioner;
Former Member – Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission (BERC);
The writer can be reached at [email protected]
