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By:

Prasad Dixit

11 October 2024 at 1:09:23 am

The Human Advantage in an Artificial Age

As artificial intelligence grows smarter and more efficient, the real battle may not be about machines surpassing humanity but about whether humans squander the qualities that still set them apart. With the recent news of a Chinese robot beating the human record in a half- marathon, there is renewed debate on how AI could outsmart human beings. Many experts see it as yet another proof of impending disaster as AI takes over most of the jobs in the years to come. This is not the first time when...

The Human Advantage in an Artificial Age

As artificial intelligence grows smarter and more efficient, the real battle may not be about machines surpassing humanity but about whether humans squander the qualities that still set them apart. With the recent news of a Chinese robot beating the human record in a half- marathon, there is renewed debate on how AI could outsmart human beings. Many experts see it as yet another proof of impending disaster as AI takes over most of the jobs in the years to come. This is not the first time when human civilization is facing a technological revolution that has the potential to impact society and economy in a profound manner. There is, however, a crucial difference with AI driven revolution that is often missed out. The first industrial revolution happened because steam engines were invented and it led to mechanization of production. It was followed by discovery of electrical energy and technologies to harness it for mass production. Next wave of evolution was led by computerization and automation in practically all the fields covering both offices and industrial shop floors through mainframes, personal computers, and programmable logic controllers. While all these leaps in technologies are very different in terms of the specific underlying inventions, they all have one thing in common. They were all invented to do things that were humanly impossible to do. One steam engine or electric motor could do the work that perhaps hundreds of humans would never be able to accomplish even with their collective muscle power. Automation of the manufacturing assembly line would deliver speed and accuracy that human beings would never be able to achieve. Beyond Human Technological advances in Telecommunication, for that matter, have simply expanded the range of 'hearing' and 'seeing' far beyond what human vocal chords, ears, and eyes could manage to do on their own. Computers, at its core, are essentially doing the math and calculations at a speed and accuracy that the human brain can never achieve. To add to that, machines using all these innovations in technology would work tirelessly without any fatigue for a duration that human beings would never be able to match. Although AI is yet another highly potent technological innovation, it is not as straightforward as the previous ones. It can absorb and synthesize huge amounts of data that the human brain perhaps cannot do. Ability of AI to answer any question reasonably well using all the global knowledge made available to it, summarize enormous amount of data and text quickly, quickly draw a complex picture based on instructions given verbally, predict a trend, recognize and highlight a specific face in a fraction of a second from millions of faces, write code based on simple English instructions, are all examples where the speed and accuracy of underlying computation is delivering what human being cannot match. However, there are several areas where human beings are trying to improve AI so that it can, some day, match or exceed capability that human beings themselves already have. Examples of this include the ability of AI to completely replace a human driver safely in all situations, understand full context or an intent behind a statement, carry out complex and well-coordinated mechanical activity in response to various unpredictable situations, react appropriately by correctly assessing the emotions at play, integrate generated code appropriately in the existing larger systems landscape, and so on. In such cases, AI is not exhibiting any capability that is humanly impossible to match. On the contrary, AI is trying to catch up with what humans can do easily. In other words, in these areas, AI is trying to become what humans already are. This very aspect separates AI driven technology revolution from all the previous ones. Direct Competition It is often said that AI and humans will co-exist in the future, and people will need to change their ways of working. It is obvious that AI is also going to directly compete with humans in many sectors. Equipment with an embedded chip on-board do compete with humans even today. A case in point is household equipment such as ‘intelligent’ washing machines and dish-washers where robots to do vacuum cleaning and floor mopping do compete with humans offering these services. A human household help can perform these activities far better than what a machine can do. However, given an affordable choice, an increasing number of households prefer machines over human maid services for a reason. Human household help may not always be punctual, sincere, honest, and reliable. But machines are. Uncontrolled emotions, anger, frustration, laziness, indiscipline, absenteeism do affect humans - but not AI driven machines (at least till the time AI itself acquires emotions of its own, and becomes self-aware some day). This aspect of comparison between AI and humans is likely to become far more prominent and consequential as AI driven machines and robots become more and more intelligent and thereby start competing far more effectively with human capability in many spheres. Competition is said to bring about improvement. Just as AI improves itself through continuous learning to mimic human behaviour and actions, human workforce also needs to improve itself by avoiding behavioural issues and inefficiencies referred to above. Otherwise, humans would lose the natural advantage that they still enjoy over AI, and which is likely to continue even in the foreseeable future. Employers or consumers in the labour-intensive service sector will accept AI driven machines and robots with all its known limitations if it turns out to be a better net-net deal in comparison to services offered by humans. This specific aspect has tremendous significance for India. Many Countries from the developed world do not have a young population with reasonably good IQ in required numbers. India, on the other hand, has it in abundance. One could compare it with abundant availability of Thorium or Sunlight in India as compared to the Western world. Consequently, unlike many Countries in the world that have a Uranium centric approach towards nuclear energy, India's approach needs to be centered around Thorium. India's strategy related to renewable, non-conventional, green energy needs to be based on solar power. Indian Context Strategies for adopting AI in the Indian context need to be similarly tailored for the Indian context. India needs to adopt AI in the areas where it clearly has an advantage over humans in terms of speed, throughput, ease of use, accuracy, and efficiency. However, the use of AI needs to be judiciously controlled in areas where AI is trying to catch up with the capabilities of the human mind and body. Several labour-intensive services such as drivers, caregivers for the elderly people, parcel delivery, security guards, maintenance and repair of various equipment, are all examples in that category. Educational policies and overall work culture in the Country needs to appreciate this reality. Just as AI experts are trying hard to 'teach' AI algorithms and improve them through supervised learning, another set of experts need to sensitize and teach humans on how to understand, appreciate, preserve, and further hone the significant natural advantage that they already have over AI. Despite all the technological breakthroughs in AI, in many areas, still, it is a battle that humans will lose only if they choose to. (The writer works in the Information Technology sector. Views personal.)

Katchatheevu and the Ghosts of Forgotten Treaties

Ahead of his Sri Lanka visit, Prime Minister Modi finds his stance on Katchatheevu echoed by an unlikely ‘ally’ - Tamil Nadu’s Chief Minister M.K. Stalin.

As Narendra Modi steps onto Sri Lankan soil, the spectre of Katchatheevu looms large in this state visit. For beneath the surface of diplomatic niceties, an old ghost has stirred. Katchatheevu, a tiny islet in the Palk Strait that India ceded to Sri Lanka in 1974, has once again entered the bloodstream of Indian politics.


Last year, prior to the Lok Sabha polls, Modi, whilst campaigning in Tamil Nadu, had spoken about the need to revisit this historical error, dubbing it a blunder of the Congress era. Now, ahead of his visit to Sri Lanka, Tamil Nadu’s Chief Minister, M.K. Stalin - leader of the DravidaMunnetraKazhagam (DMK) and a fierce critic of Modi - has passed a resolution in the Tamil Nadu Assembly urging the Union government to retrieve Katchatheevu. In doing so, Stalin is unwittingly toeing Modi’s line.


Katchatheevu’s history, much like the larger Indo-Lankan relationship, has been shaped by colonial borders and the ghosts of forgotten treaties. The island, a rocky outcrop between Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka’s Jaffna Peninsula, was once the domain of warring kingdoms, claimed at various points by the Jaffna kings, the Pandyas of Tamil Nadu, and later, the Portuguese, Dutch, and British. By the early 20th century, the British, who ruled both India and Ceylon, found little need to resolve the island’s ambiguous sovereignty—until, of course, the empire dissolved and two new nations emerged.


In the 1920s and 1930s, British administrators in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) argued that Katchatheevu fell under Ceylonese control, citing old revenue records. Indian officials in the Madras Presidency disagreed but saw little urgency in pressing the issue. The ambiguity persisted until the 1970s, when the governments of Indira Gandhi and Sirimavo Bandaranaike sought to settle lingering territorial disputes as part of a broader effort to cement post-colonial ties.


In 1974, after years of deliberation, the Indira-Sirimavo Accord was signed. India formally ceded any claim over Katchatheevu, recognizing Sri Lanka’s sovereignty over the island. The deal was supposedly meant to resolve maritime disputes amicably, but in hindsight, it appears to have been one of the gravest strategic miscalculations of independent India.


At the time, the decision stirred outrage in Tamil Nadu, where fishermen had traditionally used Katchatheevu as a resting point. Tamil Nadu’s then Chief Minister, M. Karunanidhi, railed against the deal, calling it a betrayal of Tamil interests. But the Congress dismissed Tamil Nadu’s opposition as regional dissent. The island had been used for centuries by Tamil Nadu’s fishermen, but Delhi’s bureaucratic calculus deemed it expendable.


In 1976, Indira Gandhi’s government compounded the mistake by signing a supplementary agreement that stripped Indian fishermen of their rights in Katchatheevu’s waters. Successive Sri Lankan governments then treated the area as their exclusive domain, routinely arresting Tamil Nadu’s fishermen who ventured too close.


Over the decades, Tamil Nadu’s leaders from Karunanidhi to Jayalalithaa have demanded that Delhi reclaim Katchatheevu. But it was Modi, during his 2014 and 2019 election campaigns, who gave the issue national prominence. He accused Congress of gifting away Indian territory without parliamentary approval and vowed to correct the historical wrong.


Now, ahead of the 2025 Tamil Nadu Assembly elections, Stalin is reviving the issue out of political necessity. With the BJP making inroads in Tamil Nadu, the DMK cannot afford to be seen as weaker on Tamil rights than Modi himself.


By raising Katchatheevu just before Modi’s visit, Stalin is reinforcing an issue that Modi himself had championed. More importantly, he is signalling that the DMK is not willing to cede the Tamil nationalist vote to the BJP.


For Modi, this is an unexpected advantage. If even a DMK-led Tamil Nadu government believes that Katchatheevu must be retrieved, then Modi’s long-standing position is validated. Stalin’s move strengthens India’s bargaining hand. If New Delhi decides to reopen the discussion with Colombo, it can do so with the claim that there is cross-party consensus on the issue.


For decades, the BJP has struggled to gain political traction in Tamil Nadu. The state’s Dravidian political culture has resisted the party’s Hindutva narrative, and it has remained an electoral outlier. But in the past few years, the BJP has been making steady inroads, leveraging issues like Katchatheevu to gain support among Tamil Nadu’s disaffected fishing communities. If the DMK is forced to echo Modi’s stance, it only reinforces the BJP’s argument that Congress-era blunders continue to haunt Tamil Nadu.


Beyond the political gains, the Katchatheevu issue is also an opportunity for Modi to assert India’s regional influence. Sri Lanka, still recovering from its economic crisis, is heavily dependent on Indian assistance. By bringing up Katchatheevu in some form, Modi can remind Sri Lanka that India is not a passive observer in regional politics.


Sri Lanka, predictably, will resist any discussion of sovereignty. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake cannot afford to be seen conceding territory. However, Modi’s visit presents a moment for diplomatic pressure, if not for outright territorial negotiations, then for significant concessions on fishing rights.


If Modi can push for stronger protections for Tamil fishermen, or even force Sri Lanka to acknowledge the illegitimacy of the 1976 agreement, he will have achieved something no Indian leader has managed in 50 years.

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