Consider the year 1996. That’s twenty years ago. Multimedia was in its infancy. There was no Google, no social media. Electric vehicles were a dream. Amazon had just started. The Human Genome Project was underway.
In his book Visions: How Science will Revolutionize the 21st Century (1997), Michio Kaku, acclaimed theoretical physicist and string field theory co-founder, discussed the status of science in 1996 and made several predictions for how the world would look in 2020 and even later. As the host of a TV show, he spoke to nearly 150 scientists and technologists on what the near and distant future holds.
Reading the book now, it becomes clear that he got many things spot on. He talked about how microprocessors would become cheap, and computing pervasive. With a flourishing mobile revolution worldwide and chips in refrigerators, washing machines, playstations and so on, computing is indeed pervasive.
He was right about electric/hybrid vehicles and automated (driverless) cars. He was right about the Internet of Things. He was also right about the dominance of artificial intelligence and robotics. He also predicted the advent of internet glasses; there is now, for instance, the Google Glass.
Kaku says the twentieth century saw three scientific revolutions: the computer revolution, the quantum revolution and the biomolecular revolution. By 2020, a new era would be heralded, one of synergy between the three revolutions. This is indeed happening. Bioinformatics is an example of synergy between the biomolecular revolution and the computer revolution, resulting in automated gene-sequencing and genotype/phenotype matching. Advances in magnetic resonance imaging is a synergy between the biomolecular revolution and the quantum revolution. Visions is an engrossing read even now, twenty years later.
In 2011, Kaku again spoke to 300 scientists and technologists, and came up with another book. Physics of the Future: The Inventions That Will Transform Our Lives (2011) is a futuristic look at progress in science till the year 2100 AD. He says,
I hope this book will give an insider’s perspective on what miraculous discoveries await us and provide the most authentic, authoritative look into the world of 2100.
Kaku covers the entire gamut of science (not just physics), including information technology, artificial intelligence, medicine, nanotechnology, energy and space travel. At the end of the book, he provides a tantalising glimpse into a day in January 2100.
Some of his predictions are mind-blowing. For instance, he claims that by 2100, telepathy (mind-to-mind communication) and telekinesis (moving objects by means of the mind) will be possible. Recently scientists have been able to record dreams and even upload thoughts into a rat’s brain. And as Kaku writes, paralysed people have been hooked up to computers and are able to control cursor movements through their thoughts. So his claims may not seem far-fetched. Maybe, as he says, “By 2100, our destiny is to become like the gods we once worshipped and feared.”
Since energy is one of the specialisations of this writer, here are some points about Kaku’s predictions on energy.
Kaku believes that by 2100, we would have succeeded in harnessing fusion power, which would supply us with unlimited energy for our needs. We may be able to develop room-temperature superconductors by then, which could be used to build roads on which our (driverless) cars could float (move without friction), and at very high speeds. Since a lot of energy is expended currently in overcoming the friction on roads, high-temperature superconductors can drastically reduce energy consumption.
By then, we would also be capable of “sending hundreds of space satellites into orbit around the earth, absorbing radiation from the sun, and then beaming this energy down to earth in the form of microwave radiation.”
Kaku’s book, like his predictions, is miraculous. This writer has a twinge of regret that he would not live to see these changes occur by 2100.
We live in an inflection point in history, and, if futurist Ray Kurzweil is right, in the proximity of a singularity. It is quite probable that we will witness some enormous upheavals in our way of life.
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Steve Ovett, the famous British middle-distance athlete, won the 800-metres gold medal at the Moscow Olympics of 1980. Just a few days later, he was about to win a 5,000-metres race at London’s Crystal Palace. Known for his burst of acceleration on the home stretch, he had supreme confidence in his ability to out-sprint rivals. With the final 100 metres remaining,
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]Ovett waved to the crowd and raised a hand in triumph. But he had celebrated a bit too early. At the finishing line, Ireland’s John Treacy edged past Ovett. For those few moments, Ovett had lost his sense of reality and ignored the possibility of a negative event.
This analogy works well for the India story and our policy failures , including during the ongoing covid pandemic. While we have never been as well prepared or had significant successes in terms of growth stability as Ovett did in his illustrious running career, we tend to celebrate too early. Indeed, we have done so many times before.
It is as if we’re convinced that India is destined for greater heights, come what may, and so we never run through the finish line. Do we and our policymakers suffer from a collective optimism bias, which, as the Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman once wrote, “may well be the most significant of the cognitive biases”? The optimism bias arises from mistaken beliefs which form expectations that are better than the reality. It makes us underestimate chances of a negative outcome and ignore warnings repeatedly.
The Indian economy had a dream run for five years from 2003-04 to 2007-08, with an average annual growth rate of around 9%. Many believed that India was on its way to clocking consistent double-digit growth and comparisons with China were rife. It was conveniently overlooked that this output expansion had come mainly came from a few sectors: automobiles, telecom and business services.
Indians were made to believe that we could sprint without high-quality education, healthcare, infrastructure or banking sectors, which form the backbone of any stable economy. The plan was to build them as we went along, but then in the euphoria of short-term success, it got lost.
India’s exports of goods grew from $20 billion in 1990-91 to over $310 billion in 2019-20. Looking at these absolute figures it would seem as if India has arrived on the world stage. However, India’s share of global trade has moved up only marginally. Even now, the country accounts for less than 2% of the world’s goods exports.
More importantly, hidden behind this performance was the role played by one sector that should have never made it to India’s list of exports—refined petroleum. The share of refined petroleum exports in India’s goods exports increased from 1.4% in 1996-97 to over 18% in 2011-12.
An import-intensive sector with low labour intensity, exports of refined petroleum zoomed because of the then policy regime of a retail price ceiling on petroleum products in the domestic market. While we have done well in the export of services, our share is still less than 4% of world exports.
India seemed to emerge from the 2008 global financial crisis relatively unscathed. But, a temporary demand push had played a role in the revival—the incomes of many households, both rural and urban, had shot up. Fiscal stimulus to the rural economy and implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission scales had led to the salaries of around 20% of organized-sector employees jumping up. We celebrated, but once again, neither did we resolve the crisis brewing elsewhere in India’s banking sector, nor did we improve our capacity for healthcare or quality education.
Employment saw little economy-wide growth in our boom years. Manufacturing jobs, if anything, shrank. But we continued to celebrate. Youth flocked to low-productivity service-sector jobs, such as those in hotels and restaurants, security and other services. The dependence on such jobs on one hand and high-skilled services on the other was bound to make Indian society more unequal.
And then, there is agriculture, an elephant in the room. If and when farm-sector reforms get implemented, celebrations would once again be premature. The vast majority of India’s farmers have small plots of land, and though these farms are at least as productive as larger ones, net absolute incomes from small plots can only be meagre.
A further rise in farm productivity and consequent increase in supply, if not matched by a demand rise, especially with access to export markets, would result in downward pressure on market prices for farm produce and a further decline in the net incomes of small farmers.
We should learn from what John Treacy did right. He didn’t give up, and pushed for the finish line like it was his only chance at winning. Treacy had years of long-distance practice. The same goes for our economy. A long grind is required to build up its base before we can win and celebrate. And Ovett did not blame anyone for his loss. We play the blame game. Everyone else, right from China and the US to ‘greedy corporates’, seems to be responsible for our failures.
We have lowered absolute poverty levels and had technology-based successes like Aadhaar and digital access to public services. But there are no short cuts to good quality and adequate healthcare and education services. We must remain optimistic but stay firmly away from the optimism bias.
In the end, it is not about how we start, but how we finish. The disastrous second wave of covid and our inability to manage it is a ghastly reminder of this fact.