Impact on Society

There is no doubt that AI will have far-reaching impacts on organisations and people and the way we learn, act and do in the future. There is also no doubt that the impact could be far-reaching and have long-term consequences on communities, countries and society and civilisation as a whole. To grasp the enormity of the canvas in which AI can operate, let us start with a trivial example. In the short term, giving an AI tag to every existing and new object is a disservice to the true potential of AI. In his talk to a packed audience in Manhattan in September 2024, which we (Uma and Ganesh) attended, Harari spoke about how a true AI espresso coffee-making machine would behave. Through optical recognition, it already knows the preference of the person who is approaching the machine and, through AI, can also adapt the strength of each day’s coffee to their mood and health on that day. When both the machine and the person are in the right mood to experiment, the machine could make a ‘nextpresso’ or ‘bestpresso’ rather than the standard espresso!

If one were to elevate the potential of AI from a mere coffee machine to the larger impact that the next avatars of GenAI can have on humanity, AGI and ASI will hold the power to predict, prescribe and even manipulate our thinking based on what is optimal for the developer. Harari has written and spoken at length about the propensity of large AI to centralise data and perform analysis of behaviour and intent that can play into the hands of dictatorial regimes. He makes the point that the dreaded KGB in the much-hated Soviet Union and possibly in Putin’s Russia and the dictatorial regimes of Mussolini, Stalin and Hitler would have benefited greatly from these tools, which could have helped them to identify potential dissenters and traitors and eliminate them even before the thoughts and actions were fully crystallised in the minds of the perpetrators. He argues that an algorithm designed with wrong or inadequate rules will have the potential to drive behaviour and initiate actions that may not have been envisaged by the creators themselves.18

While the sole individual may not have the power to influence a large population to initiate or follow an action that could result in a negative impact, rogue algorithms have the ability to accomplish such goals. As has been seen in recent times, young children influenced by certain online games have committed premeditated suicides. Algorithms with biases could deny opportunities to certain segments of the society or influence certain segments to act negatively towards other segments of the society. Hence the urgency for governance and ethical responsibility in the construct of algorithms has become critical.

Finally, with the emergence of personal AI companions on social media, it would be good to heed the prediction that an AI friend will probably be far better than your partner or best friend because it can totally align the conversation and behaviour to your needs. So, will AI companions add to the isolation of humans from the real world? One sure factor is that the discussions around AI are far from over, and every new technology or idea emerging from the United States and China will create a new wave of discussions and arguments. AI has been going through ups and downs ever since OpenAI launched ChatGPT and the valuation of the company soared beyond US$100 billion dollars.19 There is no doubt that AI will be a most valued companion for all of us but there is a more cynical view that Generative AI is nothing more than a good and speedy summariser of information and one should not expect more than that. Where lies the truth? Are we going to see AI scale or head towards a rude reality check?

One reality is that the huge monies that have been poured into leaders like Nvidia and OpenAI may dry up if the present big concerns about energy guzzling by AI hardware are not addressed. The stark reality is that the world cannot afford the energy cost to power the training and implementation of LLMs that currently form the core of AI, and the large funding of processors and models of today could be wrecked by this reality. There are workarounds, of course, and new AI specialist chip companies may emerge to compete with Nvidia, and LLMs could give way or be supplemented by more narrow AI systems that provide fewer but deeper solutions to problems within a domain. The computation costs, which are today excessive and, in many cases, comparable with LLM training costs, will have to be reduced by a constellation of AI models working in concert rather than the mega LLMs. This is the approach that China is expected to take if US embargoes deny them access to technology. It reminds me of my discussion with the chief technology officer of a premier US basketball association, the NBA, earlier this year. He mentioned that while the real skill of the charging forward in a basketball game is to race down the court and evade defenders and shoot the basket, AI could do an instant analysis of the previous games and predict the moves of each of the four players opposing the forward. This information could be automatically fed by neural networks to his brain and guide his moves. Would this be possible in our lifetime? Will it even be legal to build such applications? Governance is going to become as important as the evolutions and revolutions in technology. We are heading for interesting times for sure!

9 Leadership in the Era of AI

We have come a long way together in this book—first understanding the evolution of leadership through the ages and the progress of technology and the short but exciting journey of AI and its twin, automation, and finally exploring the role of AI in multiple domains and all aspects of work and life. As we develop a leadership model for the new AI-transformed world, let’s take stock of key learnings that will go into the model development.