We are all born with natural intelligence. We develop this in our childhood. I am told that the human brain grows only up to a certain age in childhood and then possibly ,we need to exercise our brain to sharpen our intelligence.

In our early childhood, we are asked to memorise poems and debates at school and also some religious texts at home. This way our brain gets to exercise and perhaps helps us to keep ourselves alert.

As we move to college, we still get opportunities to test our brain and intelligence ,through projects and assignments. This continues at our workplace in corporates and in our own businesses.

However, as technology has developed ,we have started depending more on it, than on human brain. In the past, we remembered the phone numbers of all our friends and relatives ,since the landline we had ,did not have memory and it possibly compelled us to do so. Today we may not even remember our own numbers ,since the mobile stores everything for us and retrieves in a jiffy.

Human intelligence is natural and is possibly given in equal measure ,to all of us ,by the Almighty. Some of us exercise our brain enough and hence become more intelligent than others. Some may let laziness overcome them and hence their brains possibly degenerates faster.

Today we hear and talk of Artificial intelligence . As the name suggests, artificial intelligence is developed by mankind. It is artificial by nature and responds the same way. It is like a database ,developed over a period of time and can at best do repetitive tasks better than human beings.

Let us take an example. We all are aware of self driving cars. I understand that the artificial intelligence for these cars are developed by human beings ,by studying and feeding data over a period of time in all possible situations, in which a human being drives a car. So ,this AI enabled self driving car ,is able to reach its destination through the route fed into it and responds as is needed ,in all possible situations ,it can encounter on the way.

However, imagine a child tries to play prank on the road or the power fails due to a major grid failure and the traffic signals do not operate the way it should. A human being driving a car ,may be in a better position to respond in such a situation and drive to her destination safely. A self driving car may struggle to do the same.

In my view, artificial intelligence can do repetitive tasks possibly better than human beings can. However when complex human emotions come into play, artificial intelligence may not be able to adapt to the same and respond.

Another example could be that an AI enabled bot could possibly diagnose a cancer patient based on all possible cancer cases recorded all around the world. However, if a new variant of cancer comes in, like the Covid pandemic hit us, only Human intelligence will be able to respond and manage it.

We need to strike the right balance between ,natural or human intelligence and artificial intelligence ,to be happier in life.

Lets start today.

S Ramesh Shankar

13th Sep 2023