Evolution Decoding India's Disruptive Tech Story

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Will robots rule? Will commuting to the moon for work be routine? Are bionic beings and immortality round the corner?

Evolution addresses these issues as it assesses the new developments in technology and its impact on daily life, on society and on nations. It looks at how rapidly advancing technology has affected day-to-day living in areas like health, education, finance and governance. It also elaborates the emerging challenges triggered by technology: cyber security, surveillance, climate change and unemployment.

Using his knowledge and experience in areas ranging from space and atomic energy to information technology, Kiran Karnik generates discussion, spurs dissenting views and triggers further analysis, bringing out different perspectives so that we can not only cope with the emerging future, but also try to shape it to the benefit of one and all.

Evolution takes the reader from the nostalgia of lost familiarity to an imagined future, through the author's personal anecdotes and experiences.

KIRAN KARNIK describes himself as a `public un-intellectual'-a non-academic with a strong interest in public policy and strategy.

He has worked in various fields over the last few decades, including India's space programme and the television industry, served on high-level government committees such as the Scientific Advisory Council to the Prime Minister and the National Innovation Council. His last assignment was as President of NASSCOM, the association of India's information technology industry. Now, he spends most of his time with educational and civil society organizations.

An author of repute, he has contributed to, authored and edited many books. His last book, Crooked Minds (Rupa, 2017), was on creating an innovative society.

From the beginning of history, technology has been the greatest force in shaping the evolution of human society and driving its economic progress. Centuries ago, the discovery of fire, and the technology to create it, resulted in radical changes in how humans lived. Today, new technologies emerging from the 'electronics revolution' are causing similar monumental changes in the social and economic realm. In addition, advances in fields like biology, additive manufacturing (3D printing), artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning are catalysing major transformations. The combinations of these technological advances in various areas, and the resulting synergy, have brought about the so-called 'fourth industrial revolution. While the name and focus is on industrial impact, the societal changes could well be far more important and profound.

New technologies are, in fact, bringing about change faster than ever, with technology itself driving its progress. Take the example of ICT. As new ideas are born and new technologies are created in this field, they get communicated around the world faster, thanks to ICT. This enables others to quickly build on them further, thus creating a continuous cycle of accelerating progress in ICT and its applications. Further, ICT facilitates online and real-time collaboration amongst people who are thousands of kilometres apart. This enables the creation of global teams comprising the best brains in a field, irrespective of their location-thus adding to the extent of new technological breakthroughs.

The rapid development of some of these technologies is now giving rise to serious concerns about the dangers of a new man-machine equation-one in which machines may not only displace, but dominate man. That such a scenario is no longer a wild, dystopian science-fiction story is borne out by the credentials of those who consider this a serious danger. Eminent scientist, the late Stephen Hawking, the co-founder of Apple, Steve Wozniak, and hundreds of others wrote an open letter in 2015, warning that AI can potentially be more dangerous than nuclear weapons.' Elon Musk, founder of Tesla and Space X, has characterized it as 'our greatest existential threat.

Though this species-threatening possibility is, till now, only in the realm of conjecture, there are many major changes that we have already witnessed over the last few decades in diverse areas of human endeavour, which are all driven mainly by technology. It has, for example, completely changed the world of banking and finance, both at the level of organizations as well as individuals.

**Contents and Sample Pages**