Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Power

BALANCING ENTHUSIASM FOR AI’S POTENTIAL WITH CONCERNS ON WHAT AN AI-DOMINATED FUTURE WILL LOOK LIKE

From self-driving cars and facial recognition to 5G and brain-machine interface, artificial intelligence is progressing rapidly and amplifying human ingenuity. However, it is also disrupting many fragile equilibriums that hold together societies and the present world order. There is clearly insufficient awareness of AI’s conflicts among social, faith, and political leaders—as compared to the heightened awareness on other issues like global warming, pollution, water supply, genetically modified foods, global pandemics, and nuclear threats. This lack of public engagement is due to the huge knowledge gap between the players of the AI revolution and the masses who are being impacted by it. The public depends on its thought leaders for complex matters, but most public intellectuals do not know enough about these issues, and many of those who do know are vested in the success of the AI-driven economy.

In his forthcoming book, Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Power: 5 Battlegrounds (Rupa Publications, January 2021), renowned physicist, computer scientist, civilization researcher and best-selling author Rajiv Malhotra sets out to provide a simple lens to discuss AI’s complex ramifications in a meaningful and accessible way using the 5 key battlegrounds where AI plays a pivotal role and is changing the game: economic development and jobs, power in the new world order, psychological control of desires and agency, metaphysics of the self and its ethics, and the battle for India’s future.

After analyzing society’s vulnerabilities and the reality of an AI-driven revolution, Malhotra shows that it will have an unequal impact on several different segments of humanity and raises the troubling question: Is the world headed toward digital colonization? A wake-up call to action, Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Power speaks to the need for institutions and regulations that guard against economic monopoly and environmental ruin; and starts the conversation and inevitable debate that are a critical first step in the process. It will further compel the public to be better informed and more engaged, and will educate those most at risk including those who need be made aware of—and help monitor—the unfair advantage companies have that can affect our liberties, our democratic processes, and our very concept of society. 

Bio:

Rajiv Malhotra was trained initially as a Physicist, and then as a Computer Scientist specializing in AI in the 1970s. After a successful corporate career in the US, he became an entrepreneur and founded and ran several IT companies in 20 countries. Since the early 1990s, as the founder of his non-profit Infinity Foundation (Princeton, NJ, USA), he has been researching civilizations and their engagement with technology from a historical, social sciences, and mind sciences perspective. He has authored several best-selling books including Being Different: An Indian Challenge to Western Universalism and Sanskrit Non-Translatables: The Importance of Sanskritizing English.

Malhotra also serves as Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Center for Indic Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, is a visiting professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University, and on the Advisory Board of the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, Shimla.