An essay on the paradox of human prosperity in the future world of technologies.

1. THE ENIGMA OF HUMAN PROSPERITY
When one comes across the term ‘prosperity’ (s)he pictures wealth and exuberance of
material goods. Nevertheless, the general notion of ‘prosperity’ is having an incessant
flow of income and owning the assets for a luxurious life. But these are just financial
and material aspect of multitudinous prosperity. There is a lot more to this than what
meets the eyes. Other than this there is social, emotional, intellectual and spiritual
aspect of prosperity. Everyone strives to be happy in life, it’s the ultimate goal. While
material and financial prosperity spells happiness for us on the other hand acquiring
education, approbation and notability in the society, being psychologically peaceful
with non-material perception, being social-animals, we gravitate to wangle social
acceptance and sharing a robust bond with people gives salubrious sense triggering
intellectual, social, spiritual and emotional aspects of prosperity. All these parameters
are interlaced. There is a misconception on the notion of prosperity in the society, its
purpose is not just to amass lucre but to promote egalitarianism, harmony, sustain
nature and to serve humanity. Aa said by Leo Tolstoy "The sole meaning of life is to
serve humanity."
Change is inevitable. The world is ever changing, evolving into a better version
every time. The things which was deemed beyond the vision of a common man 20
years ago is now a mundane thing. Miracles don’t just happen just that, there is a cause
and effect to everything. What made these unforeseen dreams into a reality is the most
valued resource on the earth. The HUMANS. We with our ability to adapt, innovate,
create have endured the adversities, been able to come up with possibilities and have
achieved new heights. We have prospered manipulating the potential of resources at
our exposal to the fullest alas we’ve failed to utilize our own facing socio-economic
disparities, environmental issues as ramifications, human prosperity adding to the list
of concerns. Narrowing it down to our great nation which is bestowed with profusion
of natural resources besides being the second most populous nation, human capital
happens to be our greatest resource. The potential of human can be optimized by
education along with skill development and utilization of the skill in the right direction
which requires planning and management. With a huge youth population of about
65% of populace under the age group of 35 years if leveraged well have the potential of
becoming the human resource capital of the world fueling the increasing demand for
human capital worldwide and is viable to flourish in the techy era of future, thanks to
the software outsourcing industries which led foothold in the 70s. But with the
eligibility of only 33% out of about 13 million youth joining the workforce each year as
affirmed by research and with over 90% workers engaged in informal economy the
dream does not seem to see the daylight soon. No wonder that India performed low
on global Human Capital Index (HCI) measuring nations’ ability to nurture, develop
and deploy human talent for economic growth, utilizing only 57% of human resource
potential. We have a huge potential of human resource but unfortunately, we are
unable to harness it in better direction. Who is there to be blamed but ourselves. We’re
caught in a web of simulations and we run after good lifestyle and things which is

2. making us procrastinators and somewhat less productive. We want everything in life
easily.
We live in a world everything is commercialized. We’re engaged in a race to
achieve highest level of economic prosperity ignoring the fact that economic growth
brings inequality and social disorder with it, which is not politically and socially
sustainable in long run limiting the growth itself. This can be tackled with shared
prosperity increasing the standard of living of not only the privileged few but all of the
citizens ultimately assuaging the issues. As every economy is intertwined in some way
or the other, so is their development. Inconsistency of opportunities hamper
development, every nation should devout to cater equal opportunities for all citizens
which requires firm willpower, long term vision, strong political support and social
reformation. Lack of willingness and ignorance of our own potential is an impediment.
Realization is the key. We’re caught up in the rat chase with the false notion of
prosperity that we don’t try to look beyond it. We lack values that would help us to
seek beyond financial and materialistic side of prosperity and explore intellectual and
spiritual sides. This way we would be able to squeeze out the latent potential of human
resource. In the organizations there is no scope for new talent to take a flight as it is
indigestible for senior workers’ ego alike the crabs in a container who drag back the
crab trying to escape out of it. In the educational institutions we’re trained to quaff
whatever is being taught indubitably and spew those to score high in the exams rather
than being invigorated to think, explore the subject matter freely, to ask questions, to
learn. Students are not prepared for the purpose of making contributions to the
humanity but to land up with the highest salary package. We often taunt our fellow
Gujarati people for their avariciousness but aren’t we all the same. They say schooling
starts from the home itself and the parents are the best teachers. Environment plays
an important role in sculpting the psyche of the child, a child learns from what’s he
espies around him. If the child is exposed to the materialistic thoughts, power of
money and how is it important to get settled in life as early as possible and start earning
won’t it direct the young soul to dash for the same? We need to rebel, try to bring a
revolution unambiguously because its worthless to expect better results with an
obsolete arrangement which is nothing but a prick on our way to prosperity.
Corruption is deeply rooted in our system that even if one individual stands against it,
he is enforced to bow down against the rich and the powerful, the reasons may be lack
of oneness, support by other co-workers, other is the need of money to feed the
unceasing desires. Hence, it has grown larger than the system itself seemingly
incorrigible. In our society the views and subscriptions of trendy music, trivial pranks,
superficial comedy, and entertainment are far more upscale than the spiritual,
intellectual and profound videos on YouTube and we’ve a whole lot of time in the
universe but instead of using it productively we’re busy stalking random people on
social media. Instead of looking for the possibilities we tend to debating, berating the
system and others all the time. Nepotism is another malice. Moreover, even the jobs
are being bought today. The people who actually have the ability and alacrity to work
aren’t getting jobs. We often look up to the role of business sector, government
overlooking the role of every individual to make the world a better place, for which we

3. need to make shift in mindset from short term individual benefits to long term goals
of sustainable development and prosperity. Private sector is the main job creator but
government controls it by policy making to create favorable conditions for a dynamic
workforce. We need to envision the miracles from the partnership between
government, business, technology and civil sectors to solve the problems and take us
towards prosperity of the mankind. Globalization and collaboration of nations along
with technological innovations has integrated global market. The world doesn’t just
need highly qualified people at work, it needs services and we need to come up with
various kind of services which are new to the world. Education may not guarantee a
job but skill can for sure. Management can help revitalize the youth to get skill training
for self-employment rather than job hunting though the schemes must be tightly
enacted at the grass root level, preparing them for the future job market which is going
to be highly affected by Artificial Intelligence (AI) and automation. Covetousness is
man’s inherited nature if leveraged well through remunerations can achieve better
productivity. Management can play a significant role in this. Collaborated effort has a
long history dating back to the infancy of the mankind has helped sustain mankind
ensuring better security, organization and labour distribution leading to better
efficiency and functioning in the quest for survival. Without management an
organization as large as a nation becomes inefficient. Emphasizing well trained
candidates over well certified ones as experience and practical knowledge is better
than theoretical knowledge as endowed in educational institutions today. Ensuring
that the people who are willing and able to work hired and encouraged with
remunerations would be of great help as Peter Drucker stated in The New Realities
(1989), “management’s ‘fundamental task’ is to make people capable of joint
performances through common goals, common values, the right structure and the
training and development they need to perform and to respond to change.’’
It is in human nature to brood over an issue thinking about the adverse effects
it can cause, it’s not a new thing. History testifies this. Every major revolution comes
with a price tag but we are not even close to developing AI with capabilities of a human
brain, to have ethics, emotions, ability to actually think and make judgements, as of
now we are just speculating the possibilities and perils and it is certain to take a very
long time because human brain is the most complex thing known to humans, to
replicate it into AI’s system and get it to function as immaculately remains a daydream.
Yes, AI and automation are prophesized to eliminate job opportunities especially the
middle and low skilled workers in factories, freight- logistic business, accounting, and
shopping malls in future but at present it has as much effect as outsourcing has
affected the developed nations but at the same time it will infallibly forge new job
opportunities. AI can’t think without the data, it processes the most favorable outcome
from input data but human have that capability, automation will enhance workers to
perform the job better. As AI can’t improvise, the jobs including invention, innovation
are an exception. Though automation can transmogrify our experience of availing
services and create products more efficiently has some limitations. A machine is never
a human and hence it can’t have the attributes as of a man for sure. The products of
human mind are exclusive and are valued, hand furnished goods have an esteem today

4. and will continue to do so. Technology gives a boost to both the hands of a man but it
cannot replace the man itself. It cuts time and energy which is a boon and which we
should spend focusing on the better prospects for the prosperity of the human
resource. Though it is likely to widen the gap between rich and poor but then we’ll
have to put more efforts on redesigning an education system inclusive of skill
development to enable people to be able to intermesh with the new technology as said
by Charles Darwin “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most
intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”
The future economy will be knowledge-based and intellectual prosperity would
flourish. The technology indeed can open up opportunities for human prosperity.
Collaboration with AI will enable us achieve new heights which we haven’t even
thought of today. It can help man to overcome its limitations which is set by the nature.
The internet of things can boost the economy as the number of netizens is ever
increasing as more devices are connecting to the web every hour. As we spend a lot of
time online and everything is connected to the internet, it is tracking our every activity.
AI is invading every sector and in future AI would be able to diagnose and perform
complex medical operations better than humans. AI specialists would be available
round the clock. AI will revolutionize the service sector, it will help in improving the
lives of the unprivileged and the differently abled individuals, give us access to
inaccessible regions, discovering new talents, creating opportunities, sharing
information as never before, boosting the potential of the human capital. It would
assist us establish connection with people of remote communities, to spread
information of outer world accentuating positive aspects to make them demand and
invest in better livelihood. This way no community will straggle. AI will also become
math wunderkind, it would even revolutionize learning experience by evaluating the
learning habits, limitations and strengths of students which the existing daunting
teacher-student ratios has failed to. AI would save us from the hardship of writing
tedious commands by performing the task simply by speech or common sentences
like Tony Stark’s JARVIS. It will also help us venture far into the space. AI will also
help to ease the process of interviewing the applicants us sort out the most eligible
candidates for a job. We might even be able to use the AI itself to come up with the
solutions to the issue of unemployment. AI would help in job hunting with better
knowledge of one’s skills and desires. AI and automation economy of the future may
also invent jobs which we’re unable to think of today. As AI lacks rectitude, it would
generate career in training them. We’ll be better off with the automation and AI
economy as we’ve been after the Industrial revolution, IT revolution in almost every
way for sure. In the worst case scenarios, we would have to limit the AI and automation
up to some sectors or provide universal basic allowance to the unemployed
unconditionally or they would have to be jettisoned.
We may not be fully successful with all of our wild dreams but we certainly won’t
be able to achieve any of them without AI. What we need is everyone to wake up,
keeping their respective grudges, differences, personal benefits aside and put a joint
effort towards creating a better future as insisted by Peter Drucker “the best way to
predict the future is to create it” and “the only thing we know about the future is that

5. it will be different.” The solution we seek is ‘us’, we just need to see what is already in
front of us. We need better management to awaken us, a sense of responsibility has to
be electrified in the individuals inciting them to work, innovate and pass the kindle
forward to create a domino effect. We need to broaden our view to the global level, to
look beyond ‘me’ and ‘mine’ and think of ‘us’ and ‘ours’. The earth belongs to nobody
in particular but all of us equally. We are no longer limited to the local and regional
boundaries so we need to take up our job as the global citizen and contribute our part
to the prosperity of the world, of the humanity