AI Is Not the Enemy, But Friend
Fearmongers have an old habit. We greet every new machine as though it were a foreign invader. When computers arrived, they were accused of plotting mass unemployment. When economic reforms began, we were warned of national ruin. Now artificial intelligence stands at the dock, charged with conspiracy against the Indian middle class. The prosecution has been energetic. In Parliament and outside, Rahul Gandhi has sounded the alarm. AI, he suggests, will wipe out coding jobs, dismantle back-office work, and turn India’s demographic dividend into demographic despair. The anxiety is framed as a moral question: who will protect the young engineer, the call-centre worker, the analyst? It is a fair question. But it deserves a careful answer, not a theatrical one. Let us begin with humility. No one — not technologists, not politicians — can predict with certainty how this revolution will end. History refuses to behave according to press statements. When the mechanised loom replaced the handloom...
