Swadesh, a groundbreaking film that starred Shah Rukh Khan in a remarkable role as the youthful hero Mohan Bhargav, returns to his village after working at NASA manufacturing rockets. In a happy conclusion, the hero inspires the villagers to create their own technology.
Sadly, conditions aren’t great in the roughly 6,50,000 villages that house over 90 crore people, or 65% of India’s total population. The economy of these settlements is primarily based on agriculture. Their youthful population is restless and wants to move to cities in search of the elusive jobs that will fuel their future growth, but they are caught between an increasing number of extreme weather occurrences like droughts and floods and a lack of accessible farm loans.
With the impending expansion of intellect and advancements in robotics and artificial intelligence, rebuilding the collapsing rural economy will be much more difficult. These discoveries have the potential to drastically alter our way of life, employment, and travel, perhaps increasing the gap between those with and without intellect.
The Economy of Intelligence
According to PWC study, by 2030 there will be 30 billion intelligent and connected robots coexisting with 7.5 billion connected humans in the intelligence economy, generating $15.7 trillion in new economic value. over someone like me who has worked directly with AI over the last 15 years as an investor and entrepreneur, the rate at which this shift is happening is worrisome. It had taken us more than 300 years and two world wars to fully comprehend the Industrial Revolution, and it had taken us an additional 50 years to fully comprehend the IT/Digital revolution. However, the intelligence revolution will be over in ten to fifteen years. This shift will happen quickly, and if it isn’t adequately planned for, it could cause geopolitical and social unrest. If we attempt to establish Viksit Bharat without allowing our villages to transition from an economy primarily dependent on agriculture to an intelligence economy, we will soon witness the emergence of numerous enormous cities like Delhi, which will be extremely difficult to manage due to their swarming migrant populations. This will ultimately put tremendous strain on the delicate ecosystem.
