Modern society is moving at an extraordinary speed. Artificial intelligence delivers answers within seconds, markets react instantly, trends rise and disappear overnight, and success today is often measured on the basis of how fast something is produced, rather than how deeply it is understood.
Speed, bolstered by the power of AI has become the obsession of our times. But somewhere in this race towards efficiency, humanity risks losing something far more valuable, thoughtful, understanding shaped by experience, evidence, reflection, past failures, and hard – earned wisdom.
To put things in perspective let us understand what AI represents. Artificial intelligence is a machine’s ability to perform cognitive functions like reasoning, learning, and problem solving. But all of us know that neither AI nor machines have “feelings”.
Artificial intelligence can analyse patterns rapidly, but human societies cannot be understood through speed alone. Decisions that affect communities, cultures, economies and environments require patience, observation, emotional intelligence and historical understanding. Human progress was never built only on instant answers. It was built through generations learning from mistakes, preserving knowledge, studying failures and understanding consequences.
Today many people seek shortcuts to success while overlooking the importance of lived experience. Evidence is often ignored in favour of trends. History is treated as outdated instead of being recognized as a guide. Past failures that once carried lessons for society are quickly forgotten in the rush toward the next innovation.
Yet wisdom itself is slow. A farmer understands changing weather patterns not merely through data, but through decades of observing the soil, winds, seasons and nature’s behaviour. A teacher understands students not only through performance reports, but through emotional awareness and lived interaction. Communities preserve traditions not because they resist progress, but because those traditions often carry lessons refined through centuries of human experience.
Technology has immense values and Artificial intelligence can undoubtedly improve lives. But Technology without thoughtful human judgement can become dangerous. When speed becomes more important than reflection, society begins making decisions without understanding long term consequences. The bottom-line us that there needs to be a “bridge” between advanced computational tools and the complex, beautiful reality of human life.
So this is where Anthropology steps in as a bridge between the scientific and humanistic study of humanity. It explores human origins, evolution, and biological diversity, alongside the cultures, languages, and societies that shape how we live. Ultimately, it seeks to answer a single question: what does it mean to be human?
The growing relevance of Anthropology in the age of AI reflects a deeper truth, the future will increasingly need people capable of understanding human behaviour, cultural realities, emotional responses, ethical concerns and social consequences beyond algorithms and statistics.
This responsibility extends to every profession requiring deeper human thinking. Engineers need ethical awareness. Policy makers need cultural sensitivity, integrity and secular thought processes. Businesses need emotional intelligence. Educators need Empathy. Journalists need historical perspective, fearlessness and honesty. Leaders need the humility to learn from past mistakes.
AI may provide information quickly, but wisdom still comes from observation, experience, evidence, failure, reflection and humanity itself.
A few examples to illustrate the message:
- Healthcare is a curious case where everyone has become an “expert” based on downloaded information. The old-fashioned General Practitioner KNEW EACH PATIENT and recommended a Specialist only when needed.
- When people travel they use ChatGPT for itineraries and tick of the boxes. Each traveller has unique interests that are not considered.
- Food when ordered through Apps is not the best for consumption. Hygiene, preservatives and methods of cooking are suspect. Contrast this with “slow-cooking” where knowledge is preserved and culinary skills evolve.
- Cultural and History experts emerge overnight based on easy access to data with no distinction between verified and unverified sources. Clearly this is a threat to cultural identities evolved over millenia.
- Education which is not “outcome-based” merely provides a citation, not a means of livelihood. All the Online and Tutorial Institutions use online courses with the narrow purpose of securing good marks and not necessarily a “future”.
The world does not merely need faster systems. It needs wiser minds. Because a society that forgets the value of thoughtful human understanding in its obsession with speed may eventually discover that progress without wisdom comes at a very heavy cost.
This is a beautifully timed reminder of what we risk losing in the rush for efficiency. AI can give us answers in milliseconds, but it can’t replace the slow, grounded and deeply rewarding process of human understanding. As Ms Mamatha Subbaiah points out, the ‘extraordinary speed’ of modern life can feel exhausting. Maybe the true test of the AI age isn’t how fast we can run with these tools, but whether we have the wisdom to intentionally slow down and preserve our real-world connections.
A thought-provoking article and a timely reminder that information and wisdom are not the same thing.
As someone working closely with AI, I see both sides of this discussion. AI can dramatically improve productivity, accelerate research, democratize knowledge, and help solve problems at a scale previously unimaginable. However, the article rightly points out that human judgment, cultural understanding, lived experience, ethics, and historical perspective cannot simply be reduced to algorithms and statistics.
What particularly resonates is the distinction between speed and understanding. Human societies, institutions, and cultures evolve over decades and centuries. They cannot always be understood through pattern recognition alone.
The timing of this discussion is also significant. Even leading AI companies are beginning to acknowledge the uncertainty ahead. Anthropic recently cautioned that AI is increasingly being used to build and improve future AI systems, raising the possibility of recursive self-improvement, where systems begin contributing to the creation of their own successors. Their concern is not merely about capability, but about predictability and control. As AI becomes increasingly self-training and self-improving, it becomes harder to anticipate long-term outcomes and societal consequences.
IMHO, The future, therefore, is not Anthropology versus AI. It is Anthropology alongside AI. We need engineers with ethical awareness, policymakers with cultural sensitivity, educators with empathy, and technologists who understand that every system ultimately serves human beings.
The world certainly needs faster systems. But more importantly, it needs wiser minds capable of understanding the consequences of the systems we build.
The same can be said about ChatGPT – we see the mushrooming of “experts” with near similar writing/conclusions!
Once again, a very relevant and thoughtful article by Ms Subbaiah. AI could increase efficiency in the workplace and also level the playing field. Content can be personalised. Customers will feel more engaged. And there will be many applications—one for each thing you do in a day!
There is no doubting some truth to these claims. But the truth is that AI encourages people NOT TO THINK. Over a period of time, everything will sound the same – thanks to brilliant (!) writers using ChatGPT. They all sound identical and it is a known fact that with less usage of the brain, it makes us dependent and dull. Perhaps eventually the brain 🧠 will also shrink!