Pragmatism, Revolution, and Decision Making Bedlams.

People understand you from their level of perception. It is your responsibility to know exactly who you are, and not get lost in what they are projecting onto you. Of course reading & travelling extensively across aisle helps one out, as with more wisdom you stay balanced about any given subject. And sometimes even to counter narrative of false equivalence or whataboutary, which humans often draw parallel to justify their own stand. Say, even Hitler has to convince himself first before triggering WW2 that what he was doing at that moment, had proper reason according to him and it was well justified.

What I learnt over the years, no new information can enter in your nervous system that's not equal to the person's  emotional state. Even if you give them the right answer to the problem, but they won't hear it because it's not relevant to the emotion they are experiencing. For example, to connect or to convince one, politicians create an environment where people perceive something that they want or desire, then they wrap their item into it and sell it to masses. They say, you can sway thousands men by appealing to their prejudices quicker than you can convince one man by logic. It's very similar to the experience, you feel anxious & at times you weep while watching scary or emotional movies despite knowing it's unrealistic, thanks to your emotional state. Sometimes you know, someone is praising you to get favour, still you fall on the trap. Reason? Happy hormones. e.g. uneven increase in serotonin & dopamine level.

When you analyse something with an emotional state, you are thinking in the past, as your emotions are record of past, and most of the time answers don't sit there. Just because your ex was bad doesn't mean your fiancee will be too, but often we become tentative, practice prejudices & compromise our future. Reason? Bad hormones. e.g. uneven drop in serotonin & dopamine level.

Air-Pilots or Eagles need to fly high from dark clouds, in order to have clear vision. Free the person from the past and they can see it from greater level of consciousness. For example, when you're young, you laugh about your childhood stubborn habits. And when you will become old, you might laugh at those call you're taking now, labeling them as unmatured.

I call it, Pragmatism vs Revolution, other calls it as Emotional Intelligence. Pragmatism is to control your hormones and keep it in check. Where as Revolution refers to extreme step on the spot. i.e. infuriating hormones on another level. And when it'll bounce back to common level again, you might feel sad about the same decision.

For example, Revolutionaries have the best slogans. ⁠

The Bolsheviks shouted “Peace! Land! Bread!” 

Mao Zedong promised a “Great Leap Forward”.

Subhas Chandra Bose gave slogan, "Tum Mujhe Khoon Do, Main Tumhe Azadi Dunga".

Advocates of gradual change by contrast, find it hard to compose a good rallying cry; as it won't boil your blood, sweat & hormones.

No crowd ever worked itself into a frenzy chanting: “What do we want? Incremental reform! When do we want it? When budgetary conditions allow!”⁠ 😀 

In University student life, for any instant rule changes by Vice Chancellor(VC), "VC Down Down" or "VC Zindabad" ignites, but VC bring the reform in upcoming 6 months won't appeal to mass students.😁

We can see that in election revdi culture as well, agricultural reforms vis-a-vis freebies without fiscal prudence. Instead of enabling framework of growth (say market access, infrastructure, new technologies, etc), govt and opposition both parties are giving freebies in name of XYZ schemes to masses, to garner populist votes and later becomes prisoners of their own instrument. For example - The subsidies to farmers on paddy in Punjab & Chattisgarh are not only hampering ground water table, but also hampering health as they are growing & consuming excessive of rice(full of carbohydrates) but they are lacking in proteins, vitamins & nutrients. For political parties, gifting fishes are easy transaction than teaching masses, how to do fishing. It's not only takes less ground level efforts but also ensures dependency of public over them. The problem is with both sides, demand and supply. i.e. public as well as political leaders. We often see, Public gives votes to those leaders who gives freebies, and not to those who toils hard to bring good reforms. We have seen poorly-directed freebies wreak havoc with state finances and have adverse consequences on the economies - as in the case of Sri Lanka, Venezuela, etc.

I do know, if not for government spending on food distribution and NREGS, the poor would have been worse off. The difference is very thin between where govt should help poor and where it should avoid leakages. The wrong resurrection of old pension scheme is one of the example which describes, a good politician is a bad economist.

       As per an RBI report on fiscal deficit, the highly stressed states are Bihar, Kerala, Punjab, Rajasthan, and West Bengal. A recent example of the USA Supreme Court’s rejection of the waiver of educational loans proposed by President Joe Biden is a good example of how the court should intervene in such populist measures.

Overall, my personal observation is most of the time, “Gradual incrementalism" works better and deeper, instead of knee jerk reaction which end up with no where but cosmetic change, or sometime even diverts the subject. May be the reason, Mahatma Gandhi's prompted to opt Struggle-Truce-Struggle strategy over consistent Struggle against British Raj because he knew prolong struggle may not possible for poor farmers due to lack of financial insecurity. One of the reason, civil engineers build houses one storey at times, or Software companies uses agile methodologies for developing softwares. They say, Rome was not built in one day. The best part in incremental decision making is, you've room for improvise. But again this is subjective, and one rule won't fit for all issues.

Of course, at times long incremental progress can also diverge path, if not properly monitored. For example - India Against Corruption Moment 2011-12 by Anna Hazare for Lokpal bill. As the time passes, the legit demand became cold & now we are happy with toothless Lokpal Act. The country's first anti-corruption body instituted four years ago (firstly appointed on 19th March, 2019) to investigate complaints against public functionaries, including the PM, submitted that "it has not prosecuted even a single person accused of graft till date". Institutions like such are reduced to mere parking slots of retired bureaucrats and reward reaping programs for showing loyalty towards govt of the day.

Nobel Laureate Herbert Simon, in one of his book "Administrative Behavior" argued that decision-making is essentially the process of choosing between alternative courses of action or inaction. And he widely associated with the theory of bounded rationality, which states that individuals do not make perfectly rational decisions because of both cognitive limits (the difficulty in obtaining and processing all the information needed) and social limits (personal and social ties among individuals). For example - Indians might say Sachin Tendulkar the greatest cricketer, where as Australian may pick Don Bradman. They may also do cherry picking of facts, and weight their logic more, in order to prove only their choices are right.

During decision making on subject where you are the participant, our brain is always looking to make the story we've constructed in our mind as 'true', we call it confirmation bias. If you think positive or want to look things in a certain way, our brain will cherry pick positive past incident on that direction; and in case if you think negative, it'll recollect & roll-out all negative stuffs to further damage your courage. Mindset is what differentiate us from one another, make sure you’re giving it a positive one.

"Show me how it gets better than this!",

train yourself to say this out loud when things are not going well or when you’re in a dark place in your life. Instead of ruminating or recounting the misfortunes to a friend, try asking God, or the universe, to show you how it gets better.

Thus, mostly we take decision what suits us and serve our interests based on cost benefit analysis, rather what is good, ethical, or justiciable. One of the reason, from Bhagvat Gita to Buddha's principal, all hails practicing detachment. The answer lies in emotional detachment of all types of identity while taking any decision, to ensure rationality & objectivity, especially when it's not your private matter. Often, the moment we start scaling the consequences of taking that decision in pros and cons of our own interest, bias kicks in. The other perspective is, put yourself into boot of the other side of the table, then visualise & ensure what coming to that person is acceptable, when you've to make decisions between you and others, or between any two entities.

The Social Media Conundrum in Consumerism Matrix

Let me introduce you, one of the easiest way to destroy your life.

Start the day by using WhatsApp, then get sucked into a vortex of endlessly checking Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Threads, Reddit, Video-Games, Reels, blah..blah.

Keep repeating those addictive likes, shares and comments bait and at the end of the day, you'll be burned out, an empty shell.

But did all your time really go waste? No.

Your time was chopped, fragmented and cleverly sold to advertisers of social media giants. Some entrepreneur to raise billions of dollar, will suck up your precious time and call it as metric - "user engagement"😀 Question yourself, why most rich businesses are ready to purchase your attention in exchange of little money...say 1000 views in 40 rupee. Will you sell your jewellery of gold in mere 40 Rs per kilo? So don't undervalue your attention by giving it for mere watching ads, or stuff, which don't improve your personality by any means.

Now let's talk about some facts. According to famous survey of July 2023 by Search Logistics, Out of 4.48 billion users (56.8% of the world’s total population), it is estimated that more than half of the children aged 11 and 12 have personal social media profiles even though most social media platforms have a minimum age requirement of 13+ years old. Gen Z and Millennials are the biggest social media users of all age groups. 84% people of age group between 18-29 are using social networking, where as with the age group between 30-49, total 81% of them are active users.

Today the average time spent on social media is 2 hours and 24 minutes i.e. 144 minutes for people aged between 16 to 64. The current global life expectancy is about 73 years. If someone signs up for a social media account when they are 16 and lives until they are 73, they will spend a total of 2,995,920 minutes on social media. That equates to be 5.7 years of your life dedicated to social media!

Worldwide over 210 million people admitted, they suffer from social media addiction i.e. 4.69% of total users. 15% of people aged 23-38 admit that they are addicted to social media. These are the ones that are willing to admit it. But I personally feel, most of them don't even know that we're addicted until we monitor it with time chart. 40.6% of young people complain that their sleep has been significantly affected by social media alone. The biggest reason was that 34% of young adults said that not being on social media caused them to feel like they were missing out on something (aka FOMO). Social media causes depression due to increase in anxiety and low self-esteem. 43% of young people feel very bad if no one likes their social media posts.

You've no idea, the thing you've purchased today via e-commerce was your necessity or you are being manipulated to think like that via ads with brand ambassadors, who themselves never used those products at first hand. For example, I remember the double speak anecdote of Alia Bhatt who use to endorse sugar loaded drinks, chocolates, cookies, etc. was baffled in Kapil Sharma show when sugar was served to her along with tea. She immediately refused saying, sugar is bad for health.😁 Do you think Devagans & Shahrukhs will eat pan masala? Then why public purchase? FOMO (Fear of missing out) is their business model.

Here's how it goes: We are told our entire lives that we need to buy things to be happy. Things like cars and houses and smartphones and the likes. In order to buy things, we have to have a job - which we have generally accepted that we will hate 🤣 and in lieu we get credit, which will allow us to buy more things than we can afford. So, because of this illusion, we spend our days doing work we don’t necessarily care about, in order to earn money to pay for things that we don’t need, simply because the consumerism Matrix that we live in tells us to. In our fantasy illusive world, you want to become Shahrukh & Alia, because they are your hero. Your hero sells you pan paraag, alcohol & slow poisons, but as they say 'love makes us blind'.😂 Another example - you think, you purchased 'Audi car' and you'll use it. No, in fact Audi car is using you. How? Now to fill EMIs, maintenance charges, fuel prices, road tax, etc. you've to toil yourself. You presumed Audi car will make you happy, but it made you slave of it.

Ever heard a term "Commodity Fetishisms" - a Marxist theory, introduced by Karl Marx in his book ‘Das Kapital’. The term describes how the social relationships of production and exchange among people take the form of relationships between things (money and commodities) under capitalism. In modern society, this is further accentuated by the use of brand names over quality or use-value of the product. It is achieved by Branding, PR team, FOMO, etc. In modern society, consumption has become a status symbol. Commodities are associated with Godly figures or celebrities, removing any trace of social relations of labour attached to them, making them desirable as an object of envy among consumers.

Anyway, this money & data captured by firms will be used against you further, to psychologically drew your more attention towards its another new features, to make it slippery slope.

You know, Fools often associate likes & comments with social acceptance and psychological superiority and they manifest the saying, "Desire make slaves out of kings, and Discipline makes kings out of slaves." Your dead corpses of destroyed day is proportion to their net worth. What used to be leaked MMS 10 years back, now they are called as 'social media influencers'.😄 I'm not saying all eggs are rotten, but most influencers are shallow & often lack 360 degree perspective. And sometimes they do it deliberately as catchy controversial thumbnails draws more clicks; responsibility & ethics goes for toss. For example, recently Kim Kardashian slammed over MRI Machine Promotion saga. With such advances in social sphere, parenting becomes more challenging & important. This digital divisiveness of how to use social media tool, can make or break entire ecosystem of society.

Not saying you shouldn't cross check your dear ones, OR entertain yourself via apps but set your time limits, may be 15-30 minutes per day. Of course, I do not subscribe "One size fits all" policy, and it can vary upon mood & uses, as we aren't robots. Also, there are certain benefits of using good pages in social media too. But one can argue, moderate alcohol consumption may provide some health benefits, such as - Reducing your risk of developing and dying of heart disease, possibly reducing your risk of ischemic stroke; nevertheless, its same slippery slope, tough to break addiction loop.

However, I recommend one should follow ONLY those in social media, who are your role-models, OR whom you truly admire. You'll say, it's obvious everybody does that, why one unnecessary put garbage in their head? But people do, due to FOMO. I'd observed during last football world cup, people who don't know even name of 2 players of Argentina apart from Messi... people who even don't know rules of engagement in football, were claiming biggest football fan in social media.😁Do not forget, your IQ and EQ is the average of people with whom you spend your time; unconsciously, those reel makers of Meta, and toxic ideology promoter of X(Twitter), often sits inside your cortex. One can tell people's personality easily, by mere examine their social media following list. When you constantly listen one side of story, no matter how rationale & scientific you certify yourself, you tend to compromise on 'Principal of Natural Justice' and suck sugar syrup of biasness. You should consciously use social media, instead of it using you abruptly, as its a double edge sword. 

Right now, I'm really scared of an euphoric dopamine...upcoming battle b/w psychologically designed addictive Metaverse vs Youths across globe. Those children who spend less time in outside team sports & more in video games and reels, they often lack the skill of human interaction psychology, and becomes mentally weak & victim of unhealthy body. Metaverse without user regulation will make thing worse. In China, kids are limited to playing video games for only 3 hours per week. In an effort to curb video game addiction among children, Chinese authorities are tightening the reins on just how much that online gaming companies are allowed to offer young users. The situation is grim, you've two choices - become someone's 'user engagement metric', OR try to rule your own destiny. Choices are yours!! 

I'm saying it with my own erstwhile experiences, there was a time during my teen age & 20's when I use to waste my major chunk of time in Orkut & Facebook. Trust me, the modern devil is, cheap dopamine. The day I came to know these firms hires top psychologist for functional design, I smiled like an idiot and gave up on logging into social media frequently. Remember in the end, you can get break up with your friends/bf/gf OR divorced OR at worse even abandoned by your colleagues/relatives/parents.. but only thing that will support you throughout your life when nobody else will, is your SKILLS. Build them via good-appropriate habits, and your habits will take care of your dreams!!

And yes, until you make it in practice, no matter whom you read to reform your habits... James Clear, Simon Sinek or Naval Ravikant, all waste of time. And in case you choose not to read, which most people unfortunately do, you've no advantage over any illiterate person. Making a slave clerk out of the education, that's what British Politician 'Thomas Babington Macaulay' wanted for Indians; we shouldn't consider it as an end goal. You can always exchange your social media time with digital libraries, in order to diversify your skill boundaries. Let us all Learn, Unlearn, Relearn, & Grow...and make the world a better place.                                                                    Author – Aaditya B Chatterjee.

Why India need, our GDPR as soon as possible to restrict surveillance capitalism.

They say, Data is the new oil. Internet platforms are the refineries. Owners are the new Sheikhs. By capturing our attention with free information, free services and free entertainment, Big companies and organisations accumulates immense amount of data about us. This data is worth more than any advertising revenue. If we want to prevent the concentration of all wealth and power in the hands of a small elite, we must regulate the ownership of data.

Deliberately designed to be psychologically addictive, big social-media companies works as Universal Election Commissioner. They subverges principal of democracy, free speech, and holds power to do character assassination. Trolling & digital lynching affects open diverse thinkers, free speeches, and promotes loaded narrative buildings by hash tags. 

The coining of political phrases for naming & shaming, then repeat it until trending, which main stream print/visual media picks up next, with infinite forEach loop. I laugh at times when hear same 50 years old 'Garibi Hatao' slogan of 1971, with customized aliases. Commercial companies now targets public via pin-pointed ads & not quality products. We're slave of cool brands. In nutshell, Commercialization of Politics & Politicization of Commerce. Social-media jumbo companies feeds upon.

I'm neither a supporter of right wing capitol hill saga, nor a symphethizer of left violence during BLM movement, but such incident disturbs me. So is Delhi riots, Shaheen bagh, Shushant-Rhea case. In absence of, rule of law that governs digital world, the monopoly of being petitioner, lawyer, judge & jury by these tech gargantuan are my biggest concern. It violates 'Principal of natural justice' too, where one imposes verdict without listening to other side, and this time it was USA President Donald Trump. (we gave fare judicial trail to even Ajmal Kasaab, or even UN designates terror outfit Taliban's spokesperson uses social media). Even Indian tweeter accounts were suspended earlier with arbitrarily laws. I'm not against Black-Lives-Matter(BLM) Movement or neither a supporter of Grand old Republican party, but my question is who will decide the tweets of Democrat's leader falls on which category for BLM violence? Sadly, its all about your truth v/s my truth. The ban of Parlour app from internet, without hearing their side sets another dangerous example, and can lead to more polarization in future.

Forget individual privacy, these gigantic companies collects data of even start-ups who are doing well, and then giant tech fishes of ocean, swallows small fishes to maintain supremacy. We're feeding the greedy wolves, they have potential to become next God, with Artificial Intelligence & IoT joining the party next. Mean while all Competition Commission of across different nations, remains a mute expectators due to toothless powers delegated to them, be it in USA Congress or by Indian Parliament.

Not a fan of "great Chinese firewall" but european GDPR(General Data Protection Regulation) kind of democratic law, coupled with free speech(with reasonable restrictions), & curbing fake accounts, is what I suggest. Tech giants are not private, but public platforms, thus need public laws. India needs its own digital rule of law (Indian Data Protection Bill 2019 is stalled due to pressure from various sides), and we should raise our collective voice for same. The current Indian IT Act 2000, is outdated, and requires new major version release. I'm also talking in the context of Puttuswamy v India (2017) case, where Supreme Court has declared privacy is our fundamental right. The other concern is bill does not protect individuals against the Indian government as effectively. And not to forget, ex Supreme Court Justice 'BN Srikrishna', who chaired the committee that drafted the original bill, has warned that government-access exemptions risk creating an “Orwellian-state”. I see it as our social, technical, & electoral duty, before we all got colonised digitally, especially by foreign tech giants! Ever read about big tech planning of creating virtual world for friendship, social engagement, games, etc?! I found it parallel to Neal Stephenson book 'Snow Crash'.

Yes, it may sound bit of exaggeration or my symptoms of past colonial hangover as of now, but Mughal Emperor 'Jahangir' would've been also laughed, if during first decade of 17th century someone would've told him that East India Company will going to colonies entire India for next 200+ years, in case he gives permit for trade to English merchant-navy chief William-Hawkins.

The European Parliament and Council of the European Union adopted the GDPR on 14 April 2016, to became effective on 25 May 2018. Because the GDPR is a regulation, rather than a European Union directive, it is directly binding and applicable and it provides flexibility for individual member states to modify some provisions of the GDPR. The regulation became a model for many other laws around the world, including in Turkey, Mauritius, Chile, Japan, Brazil, South Korea, South Africa, Argentina and Kenya. Soon United Kingdom will enact its own law identical to the GDPR despite no longer being an EU member state. The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), adopted on 28 June 2018, has many similarities with the GDPR.

Having said so, I'm well aware of all those modern benefit we are milking from these tech colossus. In the opaque era of Chinese originated covid virus, all I'm saying is, not to panic with fear psychosis of mobile apps privacy policies but.. "Precaution is always better than cure!"✍️🙏

The Age of Artificial Intelligence and My Eight Disturbing Questions

One of the seven deadly sins philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi was, "Science without humanity". During the prolonged fight under lockdown, One machine has been schooling fasten in the billion-dollar OpenAI lab in San Francisco backed by Elon Musk, ‘GPT-3’. Recently, The Guardian newspaper of United Kingdom, employed GPT-3 (an AI machine) to construct an op-ed, and it came out with an par excellence readable opinion article. Artificial Intelligence (AI), which can be defined as "intelligence exhibited by machines".


               
        An AI machine such as GPT-3, can write an article, a short-story, a poem, a prose, a novel or a newspaper report. It can style it with CSS and broadcast into the websites. It can even write code in computer languages like Python, to run on the web server. On the other hand, it can also be tamed to churn out spam, fraud, deepfakes, social engineering content, peddling agenda and spread malware at nearly the speed of photons, and pose a very real threat to civilization. Least we can do, to make an universal laws on urgent basis regarding development and discoveries of AI machines.



        Intelligence enables control. We control tigers by being smart. These are not just off-the-wall conspiracy theories, few people may argue machine can’t have goals, but not to forget a heat seeking missiles. Many researchers including Stephan Hawkins warned, "Rise of robots may be disastrous for mankind." The solution is to plan ahead. Its not too far away, just like mobile revolution this technology also spreading its wing fast and within a decade in this globalised world can be home-game. Until we have clear cut stand, perspective, principles, and laws on AI, their stringent implementation is very much impossible. The private sector or even for un-democratic regimes including non-state actors can abuse the power of AI for short-term gain and can bring unwarranted long term disasters on Earth. In words of great 21st century modern engineer & entrepreneur, Elon Musk, "With AI, we are summoning the demon!".



# Few major reason, why we should afraid of AI? 

As every bright side has a darker version in it. AI has some disadvantages too, and if not regulated can cause huge irreversible damages. Let's see some of them.

 1) Autonomous weapons : They are artificial intelligence systems that are programmed to kill. In the hands of the wrong person, these weapons could easily cause mass casualties. With radical terrorism spreading its wing across globe, AI can be last nail in coffin for human civilization. Moreover, an AI arms race could inadvertently lead to an AI war that also results in mass casualties. A bad scientist can turn and aspire to become Hitler or Universal Boss. For example, say, all nations or non-state actor posses the world destroying power alike automated Russian “Dead Hand” strategy.

2) Self re-development of AI : Even you develop AI for greater good purpose, still it may happen, it re-construct itself into a beast. It can destroy or make slave the manufacturer/parent and larger society as whole, to build its own ideological/racial fan base (AI learns and adopts autocratic/egoist behaviours). AI can turn evil, or conscious, or completely competent but misaligned goals with ours.

3) END means 'Effort Never Dies' approach : It may happen, to achieve it’s own goal, it consumes energy or resources of entire earth implicitly. Say, AI is programmed to find a value of an irrational number "square-root of 2", and it goes on and on, to find output until it can supply all energy it can produce, including whatever energy source it can found on Earth. After all, AI is an output driven software program, where use of means doesn’t hold values when it comes to achieving its end goal. It can re-write itself in wild and crude way to achieve its output. Also there exist possibility, some silly programmer mistake can lead to irreversible disaster.

       For example, Despite humans opted to live in social construct, they are still well divided in global human society based on identity; be it race, religion, region, sex, caste, ethnic, culture, etc. Now imagine, groups or countries having arms race among them, and they export that task to their respective programmed AI to do behalf of them; where it'll come to an end?! Well, it might can trigger, the end of entire human race.

4) The other prominent threats are :

- Intellectual Privacy Rights and Cyber security violations; 

- Fake news and agenda peddling to influence mass perspectives; 

- Algorithmic biases caused by bad data; Automation spurred unemployment; 

- No emotions thus no team management spirit; 

- Risky spontaneous situation triggered decisions, Increasing gap of socio-economic inequalities; 

- Making humans too lazy, dependent on AI, and in turn lose mental capacities;

- Cost of developing & maintenance is also very high, can make start up broke.

# Any Benefits of AI, What are they?

Having said all, there exist many benefits of using AI in controlled manner. In short we can say, It’s the perfect marriage of creativity with technology. The convergence of AI and IoT (Internet of Things) can redefine the way industries, business, and economies functions and achieve new heights in 4th Industrial revolution.

1) Disaster Response : AI has aptly demonstrated its indispensability in analyzing smart disaster response. One of biggest advantage is, it can take risk instead of humans. In the age of Climate change it become inevitable to use it for greater good. Apart from routine precision weather forecasting, AI can easily deal with vicious chemical leaks, underground risky mines, rescue operations during mishaps likes fire, humanitarian disaster relief work in floods/earthquake turn areas, deep sea, inhuman and planet exploratory missions, automated scavenging, etc.

2) Farming : USA base app ‘FarmLogs’ are one of best examples of complex data analysis regarding soil conditions, whether reports, geographical indicators, historical satellites images, recognizes patterns, etc to help farmers understand the best crop and turnout yields. Israel is famous to use combination of AI and automated drones combo, to yield more Agricultural products with limited resource of water and land.

3) Medical Diagnosis: AI can compare molecular tests with previous cases to customize treatments. AI can detect meaningful relationship in a historical data set of patient, drug doses, records body temperature sensatory, skin contraction images, DNA patterns, heart beats, spontaneous blood test, etc can diagnosis and predict diseases better than an experienced doctor. AI can turn even smart phone selfies into powerful diagnosis tool. It can unify mind and machine through Brain-Computer-Interfaces. Being helpful in autopsy and immediate forensic reports. Nursing aging people at home. Developing next generation technology tools. AI can fight like immortal soldiers due to no risk of antibiotic resistance in upcoming mutli-drug resistant organism (superbugs) war..e.g. AI helped us to prevent spread of Covid19 break through via screening, tracking, development of drugs/vaccines, and predicting current and future patients. It can definitely help in democratizing health care across globe including rural untouched areas via virtual presence.

4) The Other major uses are : 

- Customer service chat bots; Finance and trading market;

- Sorting searching in job resumes, criminals (Facebook using it to identify and shut down fake account created for malicious purpose);

- Speed up scale production; Quality control tests;

- Tirelessly 24 X 7 availability with zero error in repetitive laborious works;

- New inventions;

- Removing human emotional biases and implanting impartial probe/service;

- Ensuring cyber security;

- E-commerce delivery; Gaming; Oil and gas explorations;

- Autopilot modes of cockpit in Aero planes, Trains, Cars, navigating ships, etc.

=> Recently, during Biarritz Summit at France (August 2019), a new international and multi-stakeholder initiative born, Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence(GPAI) to guide the responsible development and use of AI, based on human rights, inclusion, diversity, innovation, and economic growth. But still it has long way to go to take a serious shape as organisation to form strong universal law to protect horrid usages. Also few countries (US, Canada, China, Chile, India, etc.) individually have their own national strategy, policies, and white-papers on usage of AI, but without any strong punitive legislative backings or practical commitment.

# Food for thoughts? Eight crucial questions to ponder upon:


Qsn 1. What kind of future we all human beings want?

Qsn 2. Is it necessary to develop lethal autonomous war weapons, and if so who can control them, and what if it gets violated?

Qsn 3. Do we want Job automation with universal basic income, i.e. Jobless society where AI machine produces all outputs for us to consume?

OR,

Mixture of both, controlled AI service along with human’s interference?

OR,

Life without AI?

Qsn 4. Which list of roles humans must control and must not throw them to any AI machines?

Qsn 5. What career advice would you give to current lot of children?

Qsn 6. What is the back up and safety plans if some AI turns out to be an evil?

Qsn 7. The cost-benefit analysis of using AI?

Qsn 8. When, What, Where, How, and Who will form Universal Code of Conduct for AI?

How chasm of political opinion, leads us toward dichotomy in friendships.

“Wide differences of opinion in matters of religious, political, and social belief must exist if conscience and intellect alike are not to be stunted, if there is to be room for healthy growth.” Yesterday, while internet surfing, I read these great lines of 26^th USA president, ‘THEODORE ROOSEVELT’, and mean while one anecdote flashed through my mind.

An intelligent, beautiful, coeval girl, ‘PRASU’ was my two months senior colleague. We weren’t the best of friends, but certainly good colleagues, during my two years of professional Software Engineer tenure at Hyderabad, July 2014-June 2016. From fresher’s day to farewell, we both were working in same scrum team unit, with one or another release. Whenever one of us run-down, fell sick, plan any solo trip, or native visit, the other partner automatically steps in as back-up. We don’t share any work rivalry but all synergy. Our tie consists of cordial, amiable, and friendship. We use to share lunch boxes, party selfies, algorithmic ideas, Bengali/Telgu events, and social thoughts.

And then things changed after first six months. It was somewhere around, first week of January, 2015. We were at the fourth floor cafeteria, sipping coffee and breaking biscuits, all of a sudden one of our colleagues ‘Venkat’ threw a topic of “NITI-Aayog versus Planning-Commission” from his iPhone news app. During group discussion, we both realized we had difference of opinion.

‘Isn’t a self-aggrandizer and history manipulator man, we have as a PM?‘ she taunted me.

‘You’re bit harsh on Indian PM. What’s your problem?’ I replied.

‘Can’t you see this foolish plan of scrapping Planning-Commission?’

‘Please. He has worked 12 years as Chief Minister. This gentleman knows all those difficulties and impacts, aroused due to dissimilar ruling government in centre and states. Isn’t this government is given mandate by public to bring some reforms, to break policy paralysis? He must have envisaged some long term vision before changing this Non-cooperative-federalism, One-size-fit-all set up to new Think-tank model.’

‘C’mon, Mr. Chatterjee! Stop hallucinating. It’s nothing less than a cosmetic change of substituting name or we can say it as mirage. Time will answer you.’

Situation turned worse over the next six months as intolerance debate heated up. Come November 2015, from farce Award-Wapsi to infamous Aamir Khan Statement, it was now evident that we had become clear adversaries. Not to mention, she was diehard fan of Aamir Sir, well so am I, but unfortunately it was my incapacity that I failed to sell her my views, that those Aamir Khan statements were distorted in actual meaning. Hind side it’s been clear that all intolerance debate was nothing but a meticulous planned hyped propaganda to win Bihar assembly election.

Anyway, coming back to my story, by now we started confronting each other on various social media platforms- Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, as political debates are not encouraged inside office premises. Clearly our long political raving and scuffle drove us towards frenemy and our platonic friendship choked off.

Well, Prasu wasn’t first. I had lost classmates and friends from School, Graduation College, Hyderabad Central University campus, Social circle, Family-relatives. My counter-strokes for the hate speeches from other side lead all this. I realized my formal and informal friend circle has enlarged as well, but was more of synchronous thought subscribers. Being a data pattern expert, I also analyzed most people has same kind of friend circle pattern, and same case with intellectuals/media-anchors follower’s lists.

I realized the enthusiasm and interest of young blood in politics has been increased over the time. Of course it’s a good sign for vibrant democracy, but problem lies with hate action-reaction blood-boiling youths. While exuberantly criticizing we often cross our limits, we lost our civil sense, we get personal, we annoy others and make noise to prove points, do character assassination, kick threats, doubt others knowledge, and so on so forth.

I’d studied the class seven NCERT textbook long back in school days, but I understood the value of secret adult franchise, designed by our constituent assembly, now. But back then in 1940s, there wasn’t any concept of social media.

To tackle this very challenging situation of presenting your views to someone you value, I reckon probably clever idea is, to be humble and pitch it with low tone. Honoring others with loser, chamcha, bhakt, slave, tags are irrational. Show case facts, figures, evidences and develop your thesis on them. Its sin and crime to bring communal, social and personal background to hammer your victory in debates. Sprinkle pocket veto if it’s not necessary to respond. Why invest energy, time and resources for waste? Patience is key.

The latest fashion is to bash people via tagging them in your statement in social networking sites. Alas! I find it totally immature. Yes, polite suggestions are fine, but not inviting forceful banters.

My suggestion will be, if it’s a colleague or friends, don’t skip on greeting each other in office, elevators, colleges, veranda, cafeterias, gym or badminton court. Your political disagreement shouldn’t ruin your career or social life.

It’s okay to have political differences with friends but then send them wishes and greetings on their promotions, birthdays, anniversaries and festivals. If you notice they fallen ill, poke them, help them. Love and care is humanity. We shouldn’t stop it, just because of chasm of opinion. Defeat that Dichotomy. Actually, that’s what Prasu did.

‘Hi Aadi, are you well?’ She phoned me.

‘Yes, I am. Why do you ask so?  Everything fine?’ I enquired.

‘I thought you were unwell, why you are absent since last two days?’ she asked.

‘I am cruising in Goa. Saumya is my back-up.’ I gently replied.

‘Oh! She is new to office, you know that, right? Her bug fixing mistakes lead to plethora of client issues. Big perplexing story. Can I take command?’

‘Oh Gosh!! Yes, Please.’ And I hung up the call after thanking her.

And yes, since then we worked happily, and we still share friendship bond. Now I’m in Delhi and she in Pune. Recently, post Surgical-Strike 2.0, when I saw her Twitter status, it was full with tough political questions. I just smiled and didn’t question her patriotism unlike several troll comment laying on her profile. I observed, she had posted a background cover image of, founding father of the USA, ‘BENJAMIN FRANKLIN’ quoting, “It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority.”

After analyzing, unnecessary politicization of the army by both UPA and NDA in recent past, I just left a quote of ‘THEODORE ROOSEVELT’, behalf of her for rest of the public in that comment section, “Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official, save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him in so far as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country. In either event, it is unpatriotic not to tell the truth, whether about the president or anyone else.”

All I understood out of this experience is, we need to push behavioral and human science into fora, and not to feed the wolf of bigotry thoughts within us. As they say, both Rama and Ravana reside inside us. Can we boldly muster courage and claim the light of Rama within and defy the all evil Ravana spirit. My Rama here symbolizes "Maryada Purushottam" i.e. Propriety of conduct or Behavior with inner consciousness and human touch.
      However in context of this story, I also believe as much as one must ask questions, one is also suppose to accept answers if it given by right authority with right logic & intention. i.e. The response of Indian Air Forces regarding Balakot strike.

The hue and cry of Indian politics, keeps the science at bay.

All the years of my academics, I had been taught, an intellectual is one who is accommodative of different ideas, flexible with narratives and plans, holds balanced view and stays acute rationale. As a student and a keen learner of my subject "National Interest", across aisle I find it all hypercritic and hypocrite, when I watch television or read them in best newspapers and magazines column of our nation. Every single day one can find, our democracy and constitution is in danger, and initially I used to get appalled. But now after adjusting myself to this routine soap drama, I really find it silly, comical, and sheer waste of opportunity, of these great platform. I and many other youth alike, who have seen thousands of less sunsets than these misemployed cognitive cerebral, found it invasive species. In these power, perception and dogmatic fights among left, right, and centre, alas! Victim is ‘SCIENCE’.

For example - a leftist, a rightist, a regionalist, or one rigid to constitution. Eliminating social issues require ground engagement with stake holders, to enchanting and tossing the constitution is not going to help, all the time. That’s why I found scientist as more humane and vital than these humanities intellectuals, because scientific benevolence is impartial to human. You see, ispo facto the laws of science don’t consider caste, race, sex, financial-status, religion, genotype or organism to be applied upon. What about the law of God? Well, we all know the answer how cleric class and corridor of powers has influenced, used and hijacked it for their political and social gain, across religion. It stings me to point out, we hardly get single article in these leading newspapers or digital-media regarding science background or scientific happening across globe. It’s a matter of luck if you delivered even one in a month in this 21^st century globalized India.

It’s high time for our society to change the narrative, social discourse, public culture and should push for scientific temper. For example - The area of UP and Bihar are more political active area since time immemorial (even 8 out of 14 PM given by UP) but not to mention the apathetic condition of development in these states. Very significant spaces in news outlets across medium print/digital/air, local conversation at corner of the road or at tea-stalls, dialogue between train passengers or night-parties, politics occupies our life by and large. The zero number of sci-fi movies in Bollywood reflects the current demand, taste and culture. We are only as blind as we want to be, a society neglects science at one’s own peril. The risk is so high as our existence. e.g. Observed by Bill Gates, “High probability of a large and lethal unseen modern-day pandemic coming next decade.” Another, is a cumulative 1 in 2700 chance of an Earth collide with asteroid Bennu between 2175–2199. There exist such so many risks, how many we are aware of?

Yes, I agree with the concept of constitutionalism as I know, every immoral thing Hitler did was legal. Also while I agree with the Bapu's one of the seven sins analogy, "Science without humanity is evil", but then from the strong democratic set up India posses, now after 70^th Republic anniversary, the intensity in emphasizing, and make shift in locus standi for science, is need of the hour. The mayhem government of British colonialism is long over undone and we need to come out of the hangover phase of fear psychosis about ruling class. Yes, vigilance is all required as just 42 years back we faced hostile emergency period, but not cynicism. Rather if these platform, energies and resources are implanted to civil societies, NGOs, and intellectuals, to work in tandem with or without government (even in personal capacity) to spread this scientific education revolution (Indian educational renaissance), it will serve much better and effective purpose. With massive 1.35 billion of population explosion, and meagre amount (approx. 2%  only) taxpaying nationals, need to understand the limitations of government fiscal prudence in this sector. Merely exercising voting rights and then criticizing government of the day, has already slowed down our progress in last 72 years of Independent India.

From government part, moreover reform in education sector, its proper implementation is key. New educational schemes are launched every day for showcase, but no one cares how many are implemented successfully. We need outcome based auditing of each scheme. Also gradually government needs to allocate more budget in this sector, and see it as an investment in human resource. Like ISRO, other scientific institutions should be given more autonomous status. I believe, scientific education is best panacea for most of issues, if not all. And if we talk more about education and science, eventually it will lure political directive to work on. In the field of Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, Outer space, Missiles, Ecology, Medicine, Biotechnology, Infrastructures, Agro and Marine Tech, etc. we are still lagging behind. Alike ‘Big Democracy’ and ‘Big Data’ concept, we need to implant new “BIG SCIENCE” concept.



My dream of “Big Science” is, say 20-25% population who all are interested will be exhausted to political, social, commerce, administrative, etc. purpose which is secondary subject, and rest 75% shall cudgel their brain towards scientific exploration in different streams as primary subject. Both primary and secondary subjects are equally important but more resources should be allocated towards primary. why? Secondary subjects are essential for smooth daily schedule to run, where as primary subjects will unbox mysteries of world. Even when we purchase some house, at first we cross check our vicinity for all purposes, be it safety, security, curiosity, opportunity, etc. But unfortunately we don't know much about and around our main home, EARTH. Also scientific environment will by default enhance economic prosperity due to newer way of innovation in every field. Life with science will be very comfortable too. Think a world like that, entire human race will be equal and entire cosmos will be our home. Now, not even 1% of us do Research and Development, so if such massive number of neurons will work for science, we solve even solve those NP-Hard problems. Curiosity and science comes to human naturally, we just need to guide and ignite the spark. In this respect, ‘Universal Basic Income’ concept can do wonders, as it will allow citizens to think freely. However, I understand fiscal and social constraint of our current time, and know well, even if we start design such plans and vision as of now, it will take many more years to grow. One can see all these as Utopian, others as huge inert possibilities, isn’t? I'm not saying you've to force somebody to chose science, rather make the culture as scientific just like now its politick. We human learn, grow & adapt quickly, its all about affirmative action towards science.



You'll surprise to know, even NASA won't able to have Apollo Missions or footprint on moon, without geopolitics connotations of space race. During cold war era, USA pushed funds in NASA to become the number one in space, vis-a-vis USSR. Since the collapse of USSR, no new mission to moon been sent due to lack of funds. Other missions of NASA slowed down. If this is the psyche of world's best scientific nation, then what you expect from others? Though in coming days, as China & India will rise in economics & space science, USA have to respond fast and spend more funds, because it don't want to lose the soft power.

India, whatever little achievement she has done in science, are all done on individual scintillating capacity of persons and not as an institution, that’s where we are failing. We are not able to amplifying those massive successes pulled by ISRO. We need more and more article on them. We need to throw more and more topics of science towards youths, so that they can play ease with science. Also apart from ISRO, all other scientific institutions are subpar compare to global standards. No doubt history, sociology, political science, commerce, etc. rest all are essential for smooth administration, but current BPL(Below Poverty Line) subject ‘SCIENCE’ should be given priority as PM is given in Council of Ministers set up of India (Primus Inter Pares).

Unfortunately, the rampant untouchability of science is still being practiced by political, media, and religious institutions. Not promoting science is itself a silent lynching to it. It's crime, it's sin. Its time to encourage the innovative culture from copy-paste. Truth is from constitution to defense parts, most of items are copied and inherited from west and then adjusted according to our need, which goes absolutely fine with me in this co-operative interdependent world, but then one can’t become leader by this copy-filter-implement mechanism. I doubt how many Indians know about our stalwarts like H.Bhabha, V.Sarabhai, S.Chandrasekhar,  S.N.Bose, C.N.R.Rao, P.C.Ray, B.Sahani, Tessy Thomas, and many more. I suspect how many Indians know about Neil deGrasse Tyson, Carl Sagan, Tim Berners-Lee, Richard Stallman, Erwin Chargaff, Francis Crick, and many more.
What about National Science Day?



India celebrates 28 February each year to mark the discovery of the Raman-Effect by Nobel laureate Indian physicist Sir C.V.Raman on 28 February 1928. Until we project them actively, it’s tough to get attention of youths. The best example in this context can be seen, in the promotional difference between game of cricket and other sports, vis-a-vis their success stories. The amount of equity and empowerment, science has brought has seldom done by any other stream. Then, isn't we are in wrong direction of priority and emphasis? To all young vibrant energetic Indian, time to ponder upon. Unless we young people of India demand, practice, and bring it in mundane behavior, neither these old school stiff intellectuals nor these all populist parties who only form policies for vote bank, will work upon.

Enough of political befool phrases, and its time to democratizing science in real sense. To implement fundamental right of Indian constitution Article 21(A), ‘RTE’ in letter and spirit, contribution from all quarters requires. Which includes government, media, NGOs, and civil societies, so to inspect, awake, and promote science in all capacity. Like sports, economics, global news, politics, etc. dedicating one special science page, adding science editorials and idea pages in newspapers can definitely help, and so in news (television/digital fora) conversation and debates with experts. I know de jure fundamental duties are not enforceable, but Article 51A(h) holds key not only for our broader national goal, instead even for all living creatures across cosmos if there exist any.
As our beloved guide, great scientist, and former president of India, ‘Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam’, has rightly said once, “Science is a beautiful gift to humanity, neither we should distort it nor ignore it”.