Desi talk

www.desitalkchicago.com – that’s all you need to know 4 VIEWPOINT January 9, 2026 Disclaimer:The views and opinions expressed on this page are those of the authors and Parikh Worldwide Media does not officially endorse, and is not responsible or liable for them. What The Future Could Look Like, Driven By Technology When systems are built for hundreds of millions of people, effi- ciency becomes mandatory, inclusion critical, and cost discipline the engine of innovation. S tep back and look at the past five years and it becomes clear that humanity has advanced faster than it did over 50 years in earlier eras. Technolo- gies that once belonged to science fiction slipped quietly into everyday life. Behaviours that once seemed radical became routine. Systems that used to take decades to change were rewritten almost overnight. Technology has crossed a fundamental Rubicon. It is no longer something we consciously “use”. It is embed- ded in nearly everything we do, at work, at play, even while we exercise. Like electricity a century ago, it now powers daily life and quietly reshapes how we live. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the clearest example. A de- cade ago, AI was something venture capitalists dismissed. Five years ago, it was still treated as futuristic. Today, it is everywhere. You no longer turn AI “on”, it simply exists in the background, amplifying human capability and hu- man error at the same time. That is the nature of expo- nential change: We are like frogs in the water while the temperature is rising. While AI captured most of the attention, biology crossed its own threshold. For most of human history, medicine was descriptive and slow. We observed symp- toms, tried treatments, and waited. That era is ending. Protein folding, once a generational bottleneck, became computational. Gene editing moved from theory to lifesaving reality, with CRISPR therapies curing diseases once thought incurable. Living systems are beginning to resemble programmable code — editable, testable, improvable. At the same time, humanity lifted its gaze back to the stars. Reusable rockets now land themselves, and spacecraft are being designed to carry humans to Mars. Launches that once stopped the world now pass almost unnoticed. Above us, thousands of satellites are stitching the planet together with Internet access, reaching even the most remote villages, and will soon blanket Mars. Covid-19 was an accelerator. The pandemic com- pressed a decade of adoption of remote work, telemedi- cine, and online education into a single year. Video calls became as common as phone calls. “Working from any- where” became the norm worldwide, and talent became global. Beneath these visible shifts, a quieter hardware revolution unfolded. Sensors, many of them already in our smartphones, became cheap, small, and extraordi- narily capable. Advances in optics, spectroscopy, and imaging made it possible to continuously measure our bodies, our environment, and our infrastructure. With cameras everywhere, human existence became data. India’s recent achievements — a lunar landing, a digital payments revolution, and a startup boom— are often treated as isolated successes. Taken together, they tell a more powerful story. India has shown that disrup- tive technologies do not require western labs or western cost structures, and that population scale, combined with data, can be a decisive advantage. When systems are built for hundreds of millions of people, efficiency becomes mandatory, inclusion critical, and cost discipline the engine of innovation. This matters to humanity because the next five years will strain every society’s ability to adapt. As AI embeds itself into every system that gathers and interprets data, it will fade into the background, much like electricity. The world will depend on it quietly and notice it only when it fails. Health care will change first. Medicine today is epi- sodic: You feel sick, see a doctor, get tests, and wait. That model made sense when diagnostics were expensive and expertise scarce. Soon, AI systems will handle first-line triage and treatment recommendations, supporting clinicians and directly helping people where doctors are unavailable. This is the only scalable way to deliver health care to billions. India already manufactures much of the world’s medi- cines and runs large parts of the global digital backbone. It is uniquely positioned to export a new model of health care, one that blends modern diagnostics with traditional systems like Ayurveda and shifts care from reactive treat- ment to prevention, accessibility, and balance. Because I understand exponential change and the country’s unique advantages, I am helping build this future through my work at Vionix Biosciences in India. We are developing diagnostic technologies designed for scale, leveraging India’s talent, data, and cost discipline. Our goal is to provide the poorest person in a village more comprehensive medical diagnostics than a wealthy patient in theWest receives today, at less than the cost of a meal, supported by AI systems that deliver high-quality guidance at scale. Much more is coming over the rest of this decade. Robots are learning to do the work of humans, first in fac- tories, warehouses, construction sites, and roadwork, and eventually in homes. They will take on routine domestic tasks and assist the elderly, people with disabilities, and patients in hospitals. What begins as automation will become everyday support. Brain–computer interfaces and bionic limbs are still in their infancy, but will mature into practical tools that restore function and redefine disability. Even energy, civilisation’s oldest constraint, is advancing exponen- tially. The costs of clean power and storage are dropping rapidly while capabilities continue to improve, pushing us toward an era of abundant, affordable energy with consequences as incredible as electrification itself. We are heading into a future that is both amazing and scary because these technologies can be used for good or for evil. We face a real choice between building the utopian future of Star Trek or the dark- ness of Mad Max. The choice before us is to shape these technologies not just to create wealth for a few, but to solve the problems of the many. Vivek Wadhwa is CEO, Vionix Biosciences. ByVivekWadhwa PHOTO:CourtesyVivekWadhwa Youth Column: Generation AI-Who Is Really In Control? A I or Artificial Intelligence is no longer a futuristic fantasy. It is here and very much part of our daily life, especially those of Gen Z. “Talking to machines” is no longer sci- ence fiction. AI quietly powers our daily routines. We ask ChatGPT for essay help, let Spotify pick our mood, and trust Google Maps more than our own sense of direction. The use of AI defines the generation gap. For Gen X and older Millennials, AI is a convenience. For Gen Z, it is oxygen. And all the while news-magazine head- lines keep warning about robots taking over normal life. Everyone knows if used limitlessly, that might become true.I and Gen Z: Aarush Tripathi, a high school junior, said AI is “just part of my routine. I use it for homework, music, and even vid- eo games.” Yet he admitted that relying on AI for everyday choices can feel strange. “It’s helpful, but it’s also like someone else is making choices for me,” he said. According to a 2024 Pew Research Cen- ter survey, nearly 70% of Gen Z respon- dents use AI tools weekly as compared to 48% of Millennials. Most say it helps them be more productive or creative, but nearly half worry about “losing control over decision-making.” AI AND GEN X: The older generation does not like so much dependence on AI. VikramMehta, who is in his 40s, spoke about a world before autocomplete. “We had to figure things out on our own,” he said. “Now students just ask ChatGPT.” Mehta said he uses AI only for quick searches now. “It feels more real when you do it yourself,” he added. AI AND CREATIVITY: A major concern with AI is that of cre- ativity. Platforms like TikTok and YouTube use AI-driven recommendations to shape what users watch and what they create. Seventeen-year-old Aahan Sharma said algorithms often suggest ideas he would never have thought of. “It’s like having a weirdly smart friend who’s always there,” he says. But he remains cautious, he said. “If you rely on it too much, you might lose your originality,” he said. According to him, AI is like a friend who just does not keep finishing your sentences, it starts writing them too. AI AND PRIVACY: Another major concern about AI is that of Privacy, which is now a shared concern for both Gen X and Z. Gen Z may love the convenience of AI, but not blindly. A 2023 Deloitte study found that 52% of Gen Z users adjust privacy settings monthly, a higher rate than Millennials. “We know what we’re giving away,” said 18-year-old Shobhit Nayak. “But we’ve learned to manage the trade-offs.” AI raises questions no one quite knows how to answer. Can a Chatbot replace a real friend? “Sometimes I joke that my playlist knows me better than my friends,” said Tripathi. “Yesterday I was sad, and Spotify just started happy songs.” “In my day, if your music matched your mood, that was luck, not algorithms,” Mehta said. AI’S FUTURE: However, everything is not dark about AI. Gen Z’s comfort with AI has also fueled an explosion in digital literacy. They use it to learn coding, practice languages, and brainstorm new ideas faster than ever. What once required a classroom now fits in a text box. Perhaps AI is not making us lazier or taking over. It is just changing how we think. The calculator did not kill math. It changed how we do it. Likewise, AI might not replace creativity, it might redefine it. Nayak rounded up the sentiments when he said, “We don’t just live with AI. It lives with us. The question is how much we let it define us.” Perhaps that will be the paradox of the modern age: the smarter our machines get, the more we have to remember how to stay human. Devansh Malhotra is a Junior at West Windsor-Plainsboro High School South, NJ. By Devansh Malhotra