One of
the great minds of our time, Professor Stephen Hawkins recently expressed
concern over the futuristic development in the field of artificial intelligence,
though its current state of the art aids in his writing and speech. His words are:
“...The efforts to create
thinking machine pose a threat to our very existence... Humans, who are limited
by slow biological evolution, couldn’t compete and would be superseded.”
But that
future is still very far - certainly not realizable in our lifetime.
And it’s
not just a single tool of modern science posing dangers.
Genetics
– that tinkering with our DNA - may also unleash superbugs that will destroy
our future.
And who
can undermine the impact of a nuclear warfare, threat of which can’t be ruled
out when its arsenal is already there – ready to strike with a press of a
button.
Before it
happens, there are external threats to our mother earth - threat of aliens, of
asteroids and meteors, of solar volcanoes.
Plus, who
can forget the debate of the global warming, the environmental change, that may
again lead to the dark ages!
Amid all
such threats, we are digging the soil of Mars, yet unable to feed all the
hungry souls of this mother earth.
Will we be
able to provide the dignity to all our fellow humans? Is it really a collective
responsibility?
Or being
part of the nature, are we bound to destroy & create, and live among the
dichotomies, waiting for the bright and worse at the same time?
In fact,
we need not to wait. It’s already happening. Just look at our children. They are
the actual sailor or architect of this future...
Are they
ready?
For ‘good’
to win against the ‘bad’, they need education as well as values. We have created
a huge amount of information in every field and that percolates in the
curriculum but what about values – that are equally important if we want to
save the destruction.
Perhaps
the values come from the religion also. But the organized aggressive conflict
in the name of religion, as seen in these times, is not ready to spare even the
children. What happened in Pakistan is an extreme unimaginable act. But, in
various forms- whether the religion or the greed, it is happening in our
country also. Our Nobel winner Mr. Kailash Satyarthi can testify for some of
them.
And it’s
not just about this side of globe. Many parts of the world are not far behind
in abusing their children.
So, with
a large chunk of children not keeping pace with the rest would eventually
create friction. This will lead to destruction with or without technological
advancement.
Nobody can
justify the cowardly act of terrorists, but we should also understand how such
fanatics are being created at every second all around the world. After all they
were also children a few years back and have been raised by somebody.
What
are we doing that our children will not imbibe such barbaric behaviour and will ensure that artificial intelligence or nuclear technology would become only a
boon, not bane?