Luxury of time … Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Science fiction writers and Hollywood both know the art of reminding what could go wrong. But only pseudoscientists or at times alarmist scientists can take it to the next level. A few years ago, I was following Israel’s general election online (it pays to know what is going on in the world) when suddenly the transmission was interrupted by a paid programme. A sombre-looking gentleman was telling us that human extinction was a foregone conclusion. When you have time to kill, you are ready to read or watch anything. So I did not end the advertisement for nearly ten minutes. It was much longer, but that was the extent of my patience.

The man in question claimed to be a renowned scientist and someone in the know. Right off the bat, he claimed that governments around the world were hiding the devastating truth from us, and he had made it his duty to puncture the bubble of innocence. The phenomenon he referred to is not unscientific. It is called geomagnetic reversal. The earth’s magnetic poles can flip due to the weakening of the magnetic field generated by the motion of molten iron in its outer core. But the hypothesis and the timescale he used it to support it was truly pseudo-scientific. This flip that usually takes thousands of years to materialise was to take place within months, and instead of just producing mild disorientation among animals, it was about to destroy the earth’s atmosphere, leading to life’s extinction on the planet. I bring it up now because it has been many years since his claimed deadline passed. And humanity did not need his prescribed solution, launching an ark fashioned after Noah’s into space, after all. Had I brought it up sooner, perhaps some of you would have panicked. When we were children, a sibling of mine did not sleep for days after watching The Man Who Saw Tomorrow, a documentary film on Nostradamus’s life and prophecies.

It must be clear to you that I am not an alarmist. In fact, if I hate one thing about the fanatics of any religion more than others it is their emphatic desire to see the world end. Al Qaeda took it upon itself to start what it called the end of times wars so that the end could be hastened up. Netanyahu’s minions believe that since it has been three millennia since the construction of Solomon’s temple, we are running out of the six thousand years of the Jewish calendar. Therefore, the third temple should be built in Jerusalem to bring about the end of the cycle. And Christian evangelists believe in fattening up Israel so that upon his second coming, Christ can destroy it. Add to it other extremist groups that might not be religious but end up agreeing in principle with some version of accelerationism. Why in such a hurry to see the destruction of the human race, folks? It is a beautiful world. We know everyone dies in the end, and everything ends. But help to end this infinite beauty prematurely? Again, the bottom line: not an alarmist.

I do not exaggerate when I say we have reached an infection point in human history. Many existential challenges are staring us in the face. One such example is the rapid growth of AI. I have written many pieces clarifying that, at least in my view, the real challenge will come in the shape of tech displacement or unemployment caused by automation. One of the reasons is that experts repeatedly told us that artificial general intelligence (AGI), the kind you see in movies, is still far away. But something has changed in recent days. Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, which owns ChatGPT, believes that AGI may materialise by 2025. Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, which owns Claude, believes that human-level AGI may take a little longer. How long, you ask? Well, one or two years. This changes everything. These people are working with some of the most powerful systems in the world. What they say goes.

Even by my previous estimate we will see rapid disappearance of jobs. Imagine that in a country and a region with high unemployment rates. The developed world might have enough money to introduce measures as bold as universal basic income (UBI). But South Asia does not have the wherewithal to do that. Granted, India is richer than all countries in this region, but its wealth pales compared to unemployment and poverty among its citizens.

I have written before about how quickly and unnoticeably the internet and smartphone technology have killed many jobs. The photography shop next door is gone, as are video shops and music stores. Granted that the post-colonial states in South Asia are desensitised to the poverty of their masses, and their first instinct in an hour of crisis is to take more from their citizens to stay solvent, but that is possible when the underprivileged can still be ignored. If an overwhelming majority of people suddenly find themselves in poverty. A quote often attributed to Lenin or Stalin should work as a severe warning: “Every society is three meals away from chaos”. Add AGI to the mix, and you will not know what hit you.

There are more layers to the problem: climate change and population explosion. As if the smog that engulfs Delhi and Lahore, among many other cities, wasn’t enough. As if the 2022 floods in Pakistan and the recent floods in the Indian states of Gujarat and Assam were not enough. Now, we are being told that drastic changes in the weather patterns, rains and rising temperatures will make many parts of South Asia uninhabitable. Places like Mumbai, Delhi and Jacobabad are already named among the world’s hottest cities. And yet India and Pakistan have kept forces at Siachen glacier. Glaciers do not need human help to melt, so why are we trying to help? What else would you expect from two countries who always keep building up nuclear stockpiles without realising that geographic contiguity ensures that if one country is nuked, it may take a significant part of the other with it?

And South Asia escaped the recent pandemic by sheer dumb luck. Presidents Trump and Biden ensured that vaccines were developed and distributed worldwide promptly. The next time, we might not be as lucky, especially since President Trump promises to dismantle the infrastructure that delivered that miracle on his way back to power.

Do you think we Pakistanis have the luxury of time to indulge in misadventures like the recent violent protests in Islamabad? Or India in the violence that recently erupted in Sambhal? Or waste it in mutual hostility? Absolutely not.

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