“The Matrix Isn’t Coming - We’re Building It.”

 

In 2011, my blog post titled “Looking for ‘the One’? A Cynic’s Fantasy” invoked The Matrix as a metaphor for our world ; where most people are treated as mere resources, while a powerful few extract wealth and power, often using distraction and control to keep the masses docile.

Today, as we stand amid the rapid rise of generative AI, autonomous systems, and mass-data platforms, I find that old metaphor eerily prescient , but the villain need not be the technology itself. The real danger lies in how it is exploited, and in our collective failure as society to resist that exploitation.

Consider these parallels:

• AI-driven recommendation engines can personalize content to the point of manipulation , redirecting our attention, shaping our world-views, and nudging behavior, much like the virtual reality in The Matrix.
• Advanced automation could optimize efficiency .  but if left unchecked, it risks reducing people to cogs in a system focused solely on profit and power.
• Powerful actors (big tech, corporations, political players) may lean on technology to amplify influence, extract value, and suppress dissent  not unlike the ruling class in the original metaphor.

But here’s the thing: technology is not the enemy. The problem is how we allow it to be used , or abused,  and the choices we make (or don’t) when we see injustice.

🔹 What if, instead of waiting for a “saviour” (a Neo or “the One”), each of us made small, conscious choices  championing transparency, demanding accountability, and supporting those who use technology for public good rather than private gain?
🔹 What if we recognized that real change comes from collective resolve, not isolated heroics? That means encouraging ethical AI, pushing for fair policies, holding companies accountable, and refusing to be pacified by convenience or fear.

In short: let’s not demonize AI,  let’s stay vigilant about how we use it, and who holds the levers of control. Because if we remain passive, we risk ending up in a very real-world version of The Matrix.

#AI #Ethics #TechForGood #Society #Responsibility #MatrixMetaphor #Leadership

 

Related Article  Looking for “the One”? A Cynic’s Fantasyl

The Paradox of Growth: When "Doing it Right" Kills "Getting it Right"

 

Every enterprise begins with the spark of entrepreneurial energy, the founder’s drive, ambition, vision. As the venture builds momentum, scales up, adds people, processes and systems, it injects stability, but also risk. Because without the right balance, what once felt alive can become weighed down.

A modern-day parable is Apple. Born of Jobs’ entrepreneurial fire, it soared. Then came the “establishment.” Jobs was ousted. The soul left the building. Apple drifted. Until the prodigal founder returned, not just to revive the company, but to re-infuse it with purpose. The rest is history.

Here’s what I’ve observed:
When you’re building, you’re agile. You do things. You experiment. You learn by doing. You focus on purpose, on outcome, on value created. You are a “Doer” in the truest sense of the word. In the words of my recent post, a Doer is someone who makes things happen, who cares about what’s good for the organisation and beyond, who takes responsibility and deliver.

Then as scale arrives, processes creep in. Structures to govern. Systems to measure. Beans to count. That’s not inherently bad, stability matters. But when the emphasis tilts too far toward process and loses sight of the raison d’être; the driving engine stalls. The “Passenger” emerges: someone more invested in the machinery, the compliance, the credits, the own agenda, rather than the outcome or the impact.

And here is the fatal tension:

• If you stay purely in “Doer” mode without systems, chaos reigns, decisions get missed, growth becomes fragile.
• If you over-systematise and let the “bean counters” dominate, you become rigid, unresponsive, blinded by process rather than purpose.
• Most organisations toggle somewhere in between. But the danger: the passengers gain ascendancy. They’re comfortable with status quo, minimal risk, personal gain—and often end up driving the ship. Meanwhile your true “Doers” drift away, disengage or leave. The outcome? The system survives for a while. but the life drains out of the enterprise.

So what’s the distilled wisdom?

• Keep founders’ spirit alive: Remind yourselves of the outcome, the customer-impact, the value you set out to create.
• Embed systems, yes; but don’t let them become the mission: Systems exist to enable, not to replace action or purpose.
• Promote Doer-thinking: Celebrate those who pick up the ball, who care deeply about the work, who challenge “this is how we’ve always done it”.
• Be alert to passengers: The ones who prioritise process over purpose, comfort over change, credit over contribution—they’re not the fatal enemy alone; the problem is when the governance structure rewards them.
• Balance is dynamic: The cycle will shift—start-up to scale to maturity. What you need is conscious recalibration: when you scale, build enough muscle to keep doing, keep adapting, keep delivering.

If you ask me, the real question is: Will your enterprise choose to be right, or will it continue to do right? Will it chase compliance, status, structure and miss the reason you started? Or will it hold fast to the why, even as it puts the what and how in place?

You may not disappear into the mythology of “passenger vs doer” in black-and-white. We all move along the continuum. What matters is the direction. If we respect ourselves as those who build, create, deliver, not just manage. we will pay the price for the choices we make. But more importantly, we’ll build something that lasts, that matters, beyond the next quarterly cycle.

Here’s to being a Doer. And to building enterprises that don’t just run , but roar.

“Systems should be the stagehands.
The moment they start demanding the spotlight, the show begins to fail.”

#entrepreneurship #leadership #growth #culture #systems #purpose

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To be or not to be - Part 8 'GET it Right or DO it Right ?'

India’s AI Moment: Foundational Models, Human Intelligence, and the Future of Work

 

The rapid proliferation of artificial intelligence has turned what were once speculative questions into urgent, everyday conversations. In boardrooms, classrooms, and chai stalls alike, we now ask: Has India missed the foundational model bus? Has AI surpassed human intelligence? And what happens to jobs as machines become smarter than us at most cognitive tasks?

These are not idle musings. They are existential questions for a country of 1.5 billion people, standing at the cusp of a technological revolution. And few voices articulate this moment with as much clarity and conviction as Vishal Sikka, former CEO of Infosys, veteran of SAP and Oracle, and now founder of Vianai Systems. His recent podcast conversation offers a treasure trove of insights, and I’d like to unpack and reflect on them here, in the spirit of strategic curiosity and national urgency.

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Has AI Surpassed Human Intelligence?

Let’s start with the provocative question: Has AI become smarter than us?

Sikka’s answer is refreshingly grounded. He reminds us that today's large language models (LLMs) are essentially “lookup machines”, brilliant at pattern recognition, but devoid of true understanding. They can generate answers, yes, but they don’t know anything. They lack grounding in the physical world, in causality, in embodied experience. They are not sentient, and they are not superintelligent.

What they are, however, is astonishingly efficient. Consider this: our brain runs on about 20 watts of energy. Training GPT-5, by contrast, consumes energy orders of magnitude higher. somewhere between 10¹² to 10¹⁸ times more. That’s a trillion-fold gap in efficiency. And yet, despite this brute-force power, AI still stumbles on basic reasoning, context, and nuance.

So no, AI hasn’t surpassed human intelligence. But it has become a powerful tool, like a calculator, then Excel, then Google, and now this. The question isn’t whether it’s divine. The question is: What can we build with it?

Has India Lost the Foundational Model Story?

This is where the conversation gets interesting and controversial/.

Sikka is unequivocal: India must build its own foundational models. Not just because we can, but because we must. To be a passive consumer of AI built elsewhere is to surrender our agency in shaping the future. And India, he argues, is large enough, deep enough, and important enough to do it all. build the models, build the applications, and build the services.

We have unique advantages:

• India Stack: A digital infrastructure unmatched globally, offering rich, structured data.
• Linguistic diversity: Hundreds of languages and dialects, ripe for training multilingual models.
• Cultural archives: Manuscripts, documents, and oral traditions that no other country possesses.

And yet, the expertise to build frontier models is shockingly concentrated. According to Sebastian Thrun, only about 3,000 people globally can build such models, and 80% of them are in San Francisco and London. This is not just a talent gap. It’s a geopolitical vulnerability.

India must democratize this capability. Stanford teaches a course on building foundational models. Why shouldn’t IITs, IIITs, and NITs do the same? Why shouldn’t we have open-source frameworks, indigenous datasets, and public-private partnerships to accelerate this journey?

 

The Future of Jobs: Catastrophe or Opportunity?

This is perhaps the most emotionally charged part of the conversation. Sikka doesn’t mince words: Mass unemployment is a real and imminent risk. And paradoxically, it’s the educated class, those trained for certificate-based jobs like database administration or network maintenance, that are most vulnerable.

But here’s the twist: AI could empower artisans more than engineers.

Imagine a village woodworker using AI to design, market, and sell his craft globally. Imagine a weaver translating her product descriptions into 20 languages. Imagine a painter understanding global trends and adapting her style. These are not fantasies. These are real, empowering use cases.

The challenge, then, is not just technological. It’s societal. We must shift from training people to “make a living” to training them to “make a life.” That means teaching them how to use AI to augment their creativity, productivity, and agency, not just to pass certification exams.

And yes, while many jobs will become irrelevant, many new ones will emerge. Transitioning legacy systems and  reimagining business processes for AI enablement of existing enterprises,  managing AI ethics, curating datasets, fine-tuning models, these are all new frontiers. Services companies will play a pivotal role in this transformation, but they must evolve from body-shopping to capability-building.

 

What Should India Do Next?

Let me offer a strategic synthesis, drawing from Sikka’s wisdom and some of my reflections:

1. Invest in foundational models: Not just one, but many. Across languages, domains, and modalities.
2. Democratize AI education: From elite labs to vocational centers. Teach people how to build on and around it.
3. Empower the informal sector: Use AI to elevate artisans, farmers, and micro-entrepreneurs.
4. Reimagine job training: Move from certificate-based skills to capability-based learning.
5. Build public infrastructure for AI: Open datasets, ethical frameworks, and compute access must be national priorities.

 

Final Thought: The Building Is Not Smarter Than Us

Sikka ends with a beautiful metaphor: the building we’re sitting in is more powerful than us. But we don’t worship it. We use it. We live in it. We shape it.

AI is the same. It’s not God. It’s not superintelligence. It’s a tool. And like all tools, its value lies in what we do with it.

India’s AI moment is here. Let’s not squander it. Let’s build, with clarity, courage, and conviction.

“The true measure of intelligence is not in what we can automate, but in what we choose to preserve.” Anonymous

“AI hasn’t taken over the world yet—but it has taken over my browser tabs, my inbox, and my sleep.”Anonymous

 

Sources:
PM Modi and Vishal Sikka Chat About India's Bright AI Future
Vishal Sikka’s Advice for India on Foundational Models
A Visionary Meeting: Vishal Sikka & PM Modi Discuss AI's Future