Because the 12 months attracts to a detailed, we discover ourselves standing at a pivotal crossroads the place our selections will outline the trajectory of human civilisation. One path leads us to the utopia envisioned in Star Trek, the place expertise uplifts humanity, cures illness, eradicates poverty, and expands the bounds of human potential. The opposite veers towards the dystopian chaos of Mad Max, the place unchecked technological misuse plunges us right into a fractured, hostile world. The advances of the previous 12 months — in Synthetic Intelligence (AI), genetic engineering, robotics, warfare drones, and quantum computing — have introduced these two futures inside arm’s attain. What we do subsequent will decide which one we realise.
In my e-book, The Driver within the Driverless Automobile, I mentioned that we face three elementary questions on each new expertise: Does it have the potential to profit everybody equally? What are the dangers and rewards? And does it promote autonomy or diminish it? These questions usually are not merely tutorial; the solutions to them will form the longer term we construct and outline the legacy we depart for generations to come back.
AI is already reshaping industries and our every day lives. Think about AI-driven medical doctors diagnosing ailments with pinpoint accuracy, AI tutors offering personalised training to each baby, and AI algorithms optimising international meals manufacturing to finish starvation. Generative AI instruments are enhancing creativity and accelerating breakthroughs in fields starting from medication to structure. In genetic engineering, CRISPR and related applied sciences are rewriting the code of life. Scientists are on the point of eradicating inherited ailments, extending the human lifespan, and even reversing ageing. This 12 months’s breakthroughs trace at a future the place most cancers is now not a dying sentence and preventive, personalised medication is accessible to all.
Robotics has taken huge strides. Robots now help in surgical procedure, construct properties, and farm fields. Within the coming years, they might remodel catastrophe response, make restoration sooner and safer, and democratise entry to important providers for billions of underserved folks. Quantum computing, in the meantime, guarantees to redefine the bounds of what’s computationally potential. Quantum machines may resolve issues in minutes that will take classical computer systems millennia. These breakthroughs may supercharge drug discovery, optimise international logistics, and mannequin local weather options with unprecedented accuracy. If used responsibly, quantum computing may very well be humanity’s final software to resolve our most intractable issues.
But, the identical applied sciences that maintain such promise additionally carry grave dangers. AI has already been weaponised to unfold disinformation, manipulate elections, and automate warfare. Warfare drones, low cost and lethal, are proliferating in battle zones, the place they kill with ruthless effectivity. In genetic engineering, the instruments that may remedy illness may additionally create bioweapons or introduce irreversible adjustments to the human genome. The Covid-19 pandemic, with its origins tied to Chinese language genetic manipulation, stands as a stark instance of how these applied sciences might be misused to catastrophic impact. Robots that improve productiveness may grow to be autonomous killing machines or displace staff en masse, exacerbating inequality and fuelling societal unrest. Quantum computing, whereas groundbreaking, may render present encryption out of date, exposing important infrastructure and private information to unprecedented safety threats.
These dangers underscore the significance of making use of the three questions from The Driver within the Driverless Automobile. If a expertise primarily advantages the few on the expense of the numerous, poses dangers that outweigh rewards, or diminishes human autonomy, we’re veering dangerously towards a dystopian future.
We should urgently determine tips on how to harness these applied sciences for good whereas mitigating their risks. Governments should work with technologists to ascertain moral frameworks that forestall misuse. Autonomous weapons must be banned outright, whereas genetic engineering should be rigorously regulated to steadiness innovation with moral issues. The inevitable disruption of AI and robotics necessitates a large funding in training and reskilling, making ready folks not for the roles of yesterday however for the alternatives of tomorrow.
Applied sciences should not exacerbate inequality. With Vionix Biosciences, as an alternative of catering to the rich within the West, I selected to carry these applied sciences to India, beginning with the poor to make sure superior diagnostic instruments attain those that want them most. When the wealthy have entry to vastly higher well being care and expertise whereas the poor are left behind, we threat making a world like Elysium, the place the rich stay in luxurious and security whereas the poor are left to wrestle in deprivation — a division so stark it sparks rebel and upheaval.
The longer term shouldn’t be written in stone; will probably be decided by our collective actions. Can we use AI to uplift or to oppress? Can we engineer life to heal or to hurt? Can we deploy robots to empower or to take advantage of? These are the questions we should reply with urgency and foresight. If we apply the three guiding questions — making certain equality, managing dangers, and enhancing autonomy — we are able to navigate towards a future the place expertise is a pressure for good. The approaching decade may very well be considered one of unprecedented progress for humanity, the place illness is a distant reminiscence, training is common, and expertise permits us to discover the celebs and our deepest potential.
As we step into the brand new 12 months, allow us to resolve to be architects of a Star Trek future. Allow us to steer our applied sciences towards making a extra simply, equitable, and thriving world. The selection is ours, and the stakes couldn’t be increased.
Vivek Wadhwa is CEO, Vionix Biosciences.The views expressed are private
