What My Mother Taught Me About Surviving the AI Age
When I think of my 67-year-old mother navigating Instagram like a seasoned archivist, I can’t help but smile. She doesn’t post for likes, followers, or viral trends. Her feed isn’t curated for the world—it’s her private vault of memories. With a locked account shared only with close family, she uses the app like a digital diary, quietly chronicling life. What sold her on it wasn’t the filters or reels—it was permanence. “Even if I lose my phone, I won’t lose this,” she said, tapping on a photo from a summer decades ago.
And perhaps that quiet wisdom is exactly what we need now.
We’ve come a long way—from a world with no internet, to Orkut and Facebook friendships, to the manicured perfection of Instagram. And now, we’re standing at the edge of something even more profound: an era where Artificial Intelligence doesn’t just assist us—it imitates us. Thought, tone, even emotion, recreated by code.
Because here’s the thing: AI can mimic motivation, but it doesn’t care if you fall apart mid-run.
In April 2023, 30,000 global figures—including Elon Musk, Yuval Noah Harari, and AI pioneer Yoshua Bengio—signed an open letter urging labs to hit pause on AI development. Their concern? That unchecked, advanced AI systems could warp societies, subtly and powerfully. Critics called it alarmist. Others whispered: maybe it’s already too late.
Case in point: a study by the University of Zurich. Without asking anyone, researchers used AI to post over 1,000 comments on a Reddit forum called Change My View. The goal? Test how persuasive AI could be. The result? AI out-argued humans. Repeatedly. The users had no idea they were debating a machine. The line between manipulation and engagement blurred, and ethics were tossed into the wind. The researchers apologized, but the damage had been done.
That’s the quiet danger. Not killer robots. Not Terminators. But a gentle voice online nudging your opinions, shifting your beliefs, rewriting your thoughts—and you’d never even know.
So, do we unplug? Abandon AI? Not quite.
The solution isn’t fear—it’s intentionality. My mother didn’t download Instagram because everyone else did. She downloaded it because she wanted to preserve something. Her use was rooted in meaning, not momentum.
We need to approach AI the same way: as a tool, not a substitute for thought. It can help, but it can’t feel. It can flatter, but it can’t understand. It can echo our morals, but it can’t create them.
As the lines between man and machine grow thinner, maybe our best defense isn’t regulation or outrage—but purpose. Use AI with clarity. Engage it with limits. And above all, never let it replace the most human part of you: your judgment.
Because in a world rushing toward the future, maybe the key to staying human… is thinking like my mother.
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Petrol in India is cheaper than in countries like Hong Kong, Germany and the UK but costlier than in China, Brazil, Japan, the US, Russia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, a Bank of Baroda Economics Research report showed.
Rising fuel prices in India have led to considerable debate on which government, state or central, should be lowering their taxes to keep prices under control.
The rise in fuel prices is mainly due to the global price of crude oil (raw material for making petrol and diesel) going up. Further, a stronger dollar has added to the cost of crude oil.
Amongst comparable countries (per capita wise), prices in India are higher than those in Vietnam, Kenya, Ukraine, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Venezuela. Countries that are major oil producers have much lower prices.
In the report, the Philippines has a comparable petrol price but has a per capita income higher than India by over 50 per cent.
Countries which have a lower per capita income like Kenya, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, and Venezuela have much lower prices of petrol and hence are impacted less than India.
“Therefore there is still a strong case for the government to consider lowering the taxes on fuel to protect the interest of the people,” the report argued.
India is the world’s third-biggest oil consuming and importing nation. It imports 85 per cent of its oil needs and so prices retail fuel at import parity rates.
With the global surge in energy prices, the cost of producing petrol, diesel and other petroleum products also went up for oil companies in India.
They raised petrol and diesel prices by Rs 10 a litre in just over a fortnight beginning March 22 but hit a pause button soon after as the move faced criticism and the opposition parties asked the government to cut taxes instead.
India imports most of its oil from a group of countries called the ‘OPEC +’ (i.e, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Russia, etc), which produces 40% of the world’s crude oil.
As they have the power to dictate fuel supply and prices, their decision of limiting the global supply reduces supply in India, thus raising prices
The government charges about 167% tax (excise) on petrol and 129% on diesel as compared to US (20%), UK (62%), Italy and Germany (65%).
The abominable excise duty is 2/3rd of the cost, and the base price, dealer commission and freight form the rest.
Here is an approximate break-up (in Rs):
a)Base Price | 39 |
b)Freight | 0.34 |
c) Price Charged to Dealers = (a+b) | 39.34 |
d) Excise Duty | 40.17 |
e) Dealer Commission | 4.68 |
f) VAT | 25.35 |
g) Retail Selling Price | 109.54 |
Looked closely, much of the cost of petrol and diesel is due to higher tax rate by govt, specifically excise duty.
So the question is why government is not reducing the prices ?
India, being a developing country, it does require gigantic amount of funding for its infrastructure projects as well as welfare schemes.
However, we as a society is yet to be tax-compliant. Many people evade the direct tax and that’s the reason why govt’s hands are tied. Govt. needs the money to fund various programs and at the same time it is not generating enough revenue from direct taxes.
That’s the reason why, govt is bumping up its revenue through higher indirect taxes such as GST or excise duty as in the case of petrol and diesel.
Direct taxes are progressive as it taxes according to an individuals’ income however indirect tax such as excise duty or GST are regressive in the sense that the poorest of the poor and richest of the rich have to pay the same amount.
Does not matter, if you are an auto-driver or owner of a Mercedes, end of the day both pay the same price for petrol/diesel-that’s why it is regressive in nature.
But unlike direct tax where tax evasion is rampant, indirect tax can not be evaded due to their very nature and as long as huge no of Indians keep evading direct taxes, indirect tax such as excise duty will be difficult for the govt to reduce, because it may reduce the revenue and hamper may programs of the govt.