Note From President Vineet Bhatnagar
So many of us want to see a change but very few of us can be the change. Our guest speaker this week, Amitabh Shah, founder of Yuva Unstoppable is the latter. Whilst the achievements of Yuva are well publicised and Amitabh presents his conviction very lucidly, at the core of his organisation is his commitment to bring a positive change in the lives of children and youth.
The power to bring about change is the human advantage that I referred to in my last week’s article when I alluded to the man-machine equilibrium. THE ABILITY TO VISUALISE WHAT IS ‘NOT THERE’ AND TO FORMULATE A PLAN TO BRING IT INTO EXISTENCE IS THE ‘HUMAN POWER’. Around the world, people are losing confidence in humanity’s cognitive abilities and turning to solutions that deny the role of mental models. The world of ‘big data’ is ignoring that we are capable of conceiving things that are not captured in the present data sets.
On one hand there are ‘hyper-rationalists’ who place their faith in the machine and on the other are the ‘emotionalists’ who accept the easy answers of the mob. The truth, or more appropriately the equilibrium, lies between these two extremes.
As technology evolves, many look to AI (artificial intelligence) to remedy social ills that people have shown themselves unable to address. This, they hope, will lead humanity out of our current irrational darkness and ensure victory of reason. They strongly advocate that AI has the potential to take away decision-making from humans and place it in the computer.
Emotionalists, at the other end of the spectrum, argue that humanity’s core problem is not ‘too much passion’ but
too little. We are suffering because we do not rely enough on our gut and our instincts. They call out for a collective bonding in communities of like-minded folks.
The tension between reason and emotion, artifice and nature, deliberation and gut instinct, has shaped how we order our lives and govern our societies. We have been dealing with this basic struggle for centuries. THE CRUCIAL INSIGHT IS THAT OUR CHOICE ISN’T LIMITED TO THESE TWO EXTREMES AS OUR ONLY OPTIONS. WE HAVE AT OUR DISPOSAL ANOTHER STRATEGY – HUMAN CAPABILITY TO APPLY AND REINVENT MENTAL MODELS. The ability to frame new mental models is the human advantage of ‘visualisation’.
The example of Yuva Unstoppable shows that we address some of our problems without deferring to the machine or accepting the mob. But for that to happen one needs to visualise a new world and then be at the centre of the change to create it.
— President Vineet Bhatnagar