Growing up in Calcutta in the 80s, Atul Jalan was introduced to reading with Russian literature (“perhaps due to the commie influence of that time,” he guesses). In class seven, he says, he was familiar with the works of Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and Chekhov. Soon, he moved on to science fiction — HG Wells, Isaac Assimov, Arthur C Clarke who fascinated young Atul endlessly. He, then, wished he lived in an era of a major technological revolution so he could witness a great change taking place in the world.
Three decades later, Atul, now a tech entrepreneur (he is the founder-CEO of an Artificial Intelligence venture, Manthan), believes he’s living on the cusp of the upheaval of human species. And to capture this paradigm shift, Atul has written the book, Where Will Man Take Us? , which explores the astonishing changes technology is bringing about in us.
MetroPlus asks him to elaborate on the possibilities of five dramatic future scenarios.
Robots ruling over humans
I don’t think that is going to happen. We are a smart species. Instead of robots ruling over us, I think, we will be cyborgs. And, that is not a frightening situation to me. We are, to an extent, cyborgs already, because of the smartphones we use. Let us take Stephen Hawking’s case. With ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), how was he able to communicate? The computer would generate speech through the twitching of muscles in his cheek. He was using the first generation brain-computer interface. In another three to four years, we will have nanobots within us.
Humans establishing a colony on Mars
I think this might happen. I was recently invited to Blue Origin (a privately funded aerospace manufacturer founded by Jeff Bezos). I sat in their New Shepard spacecraft. Billions of dollars are spent on outer-space exploration. We are running out of resources on this planet. As our civilisation advances, our energy needs grows. We will run out of resources in the next 40 to 50 years. We might go to Mars or we will create colonies in outer space closer to Earth. But we also need to protect this planet. Astronauts, who have gone out of this planet, across geographies and decades have one thing in common: they return with much more appreciation and love for Earth.
World War 3 erupts
It can… but I am an optimist. I believe, as a civilisation, we are maturing. There has been much less war and conflict now than during any time in the past. There is so much out there today. We are talking about going to Mars. So, I don’t see a large-scale conflict arising soon.
Humans invent time-travel
Well, yes and no. Time is relative. Time on the moon, Earth and Mars are all different. People would age differently. So, time travel won’t happen in the way where I can go back and meet my grandfather. But we might overcome certain speed barriers. And, perhaps we will be able to discover new dimensions. We have limitations on our visual and audio spectrum. With technology’s help we’d be able to overcome them as well. And, it’s already happening — we can now see far greater distances than our vision allows, we can hear a bat’s signal.
Humans becoming immortal
I am sure humans are becoming immortal. We will either genetically modify ourselves or use implants that modify our capabilities. Gene modifying technologies are at the application level already, not even at the testing stage. But our policies, ethics and politics might not be ready for it yet. We keep making stuff but we don’t know how to deal with them. We are totally unprepared for the changes.
