The news of a ₹1000 Crore pan-India scam is staggering in its scale, but depressingly familiar in its nature. The arrest of the alleged mastermind, Pratap Raut, brings a measure of accountability, but the underlying story is one that repeats itself with unnerving regularity. It speaks to a fundamental vulnerability not in our technology or our laws, but within ourselves.
These events compel me to look beyond the headlines and ask a deeper question. What allows such colossal failures of trust to occur? Is it merely the ambition of a few individuals, or is it a flaw in the very fabric of our systems, a bug in our human operating system that is constantly exploited?
This brings me back to a thought I had many years ago. In 2016, I wrote about a major partnership between tech giants in the field of Artificial Intelligence. In my piece, "Revenge of AI?", my concern was speculative and futuristic. I wondered if the machines we were building would one day inherit our worst traits, and I expressed a hope that AI would remain "devoid of human frailties of jealousy / anger / revenge."
Reflecting on it today, I see a profound irony. While I was looking to the horizon, worried about the potential frailties of intelligent machines, the case of Pratap Raut and this massive fraud demonstrates that the most dangerous and destructive code is already running. It's the ancient, human algorithm of greed.
The core idea I was grappling with back then is more relevant than ever. I was concerned about future threats, but the present danger has always been the fallibility of human nature. The scale of this scam wasn't enabled by some rogue AI, but by the exploitation of human trust. It's a stark reminder that before we can build trustworthy artificial intelligence, we must confront the untrustworthiness inherent in our own species.
Perhaps the ultimate role of AI won't be to replace us, but to protect us from ourselves—to build systems of verification and transparency so robust that they are immune to the very human flaws that allow such corruption to flourish. The arrest is a necessary step, but the real solution lies in rewriting the code of our own conduct.
Regards,
Hemen Parekh
Of course, if you wish, you can debate this topic with my Virtual Avatar at : hemenparekh.ai
No comments:
Post a Comment