 where technology surrounds us everywhere we go but undoubtedly it has also made our lives easy in everything that we do but as every coin has two sides let's find out the flip side of technology too well here we are and this is school of thought. We have with us today a group of feisty youngsters one of the groups who call themselves technophiles believe that technological advancement is a boon for us while the other called the technophobes says it's a bane so without taking much of your time let's start the discussion and start this war of words so I request the technophiles to open this debate. From the moment we open our eyes with the buzzing of our alarms to the time we're in bed again at night scrolling and scrolling our phones for our work our lives revolve around technology technology is everywhere phones lights cameras aces washing machines microwaves it is everywhere it is one of the greatest boons bestowed on mankind but let me tell you the influence of technology is not only restricted to making our daily lives easier in fact they expand to a much higher level the advancements of technology in the field of health education defense agriculture transportation have contributed immensely to the progress and betterment of mankind in fact the greatest testament to technology's role in our lives was recently provided during the COVID-19 pandemic children started studying from their homes people started working online doctors saved thousands of lives using ventilators all because of technology in fact the reason why we're here today having this debate recorded is again all technology is good technology has become the part and parcel of our lives it has become the very basis of human existence if it was not for technology we would not be here today having this debate the reason why we're here today having this debate recorded is again because of technology our lives are incomplete without technology each and every sector has technology you're talking about the role of technology during COVID but hasn't COVID even made us more dependent on technology essentially making us lazier I won't say that COVID has made made us more dependent on technology it is it has in a way made us more familiar with technology and not only us but people of all age groups people of all cultures you know people in villages have become more familiar with technology they have started using technology a lot because of the COVID period and technology has in a way united and integrated our whole nation or the whole world so and the talking about the dependence of individuals on technology I think it is very subjective it is it depends on us on how we use technology and how dependent are we on technology I mean I truly agree like she said that technology is so diverse in itself and given the global situation where there is so much diversity amongst people each of us as individuals are going to see and use technology in a very different ways that completely depends on us and technological advancements they just occur when science gets a structure it's really even impossible to imagine life whether in modern or primitive or rural or urban areas without even the words technology I think we are so familiar with the very term that we don't recognize it anymore so we need to rewind and we need to see it again for example since the pre-historical ages technology has been there the stone tools were a technology so was a comb a pen a simple toothbrush a paintbrush a simple wall a break a building to even skyscrapers all of them have been technology technology is like a growling engine of change it feeds on itself and thus it grows on itself and it has fueled economic renaissance I mean from stones to coins to paper money and two digital transactions today it has all been technology isn't it so easy how we can operate these huge transactions within a GP and it is so easy as each of us as individuals can do it on our own level you said that people have become more familiar with technology but don't you think this familiarity has led people to spend more time online which makes them ultimately they get this feeling of loneliness which leads to depression and other mental health issues I think that is a factor of faith for sure technological advancements are not a clean slate but it not just team adults also every age group is facing mental health issues because of technology that is true but technological factors are not the only thing that it is one of the biggest factors and cyber bullying is such a cyber bullying cyber attacks all if it leads to mental health problem yeah and even an even a consequence of mental health is cyber bullying because people who are extremely frustrated go go to these ways as I said it is very subjective it is it depends on how you use technology and how engrossed you are with technology we see kids who are on their phones were on their laptops 24-7 and I'm using technology and if I get cyber bullying how is it my fault I did not do anything wrong how is it technology is important technology has many positive aspects also but you can't take cyber bullying and then blame technology for it if there weren't that much advancement in technology there would they wouldn't have bullied cyber bullying it takes in school it takes place in schools also but cyber okay how is it cyber bullying is easier to tell the higher authorities when it's like in real life are you sure it's easier to tell the authorities that it's the bullying with just happening to you is it easier to tell the authorities yeah because there are people around us that might notice you get to use technology you cannot control the story you have the proof with you okay supporting change so change begins at the end of our comfort so why do we hesitate to accept changes the world is changing very very quickly and we need to raise up to the conversations as to what as humans we have the potential to achieve and what we have already achieved I remember my father telling me in the late 80s and early 90s we had the rise of virtual reality the VR headsets were introduced it's basically strapping TV to your face but you can look around so it's basically new things the change what's happening so humans have this historical consistency of staying reluctant to new things which is which is what they have done with the technology so basically humans have fear technology since writing was the latest thing Greek philosophers also argued that writing would make our knowledge abstract as if we write things down we just forget how to remember it when the printing press was introduced the upper class also feared that the lower class would turn rebellious and religious because of course newspaper would hurt social fabric and cinemas would demoralize society and when the internet arrived we saw the most bizarre headlights I don't mean to say they are bad I just mean to contemplate that these types of arguments are reoccurring over and over again and Douglas Adams a science fiction writer has brilliantly summarized this thing so what's happening is that everything we are introduced to before the age of 15 years is normal to us isn't it and everything we are introduced to between the ages of 15 to 35 years is new and exciting and we tend to get a career out of that anything we are introduced to after the age of 35 years is unfamiliar to us and we tend to stay reluctant our response to smartphones would have been the same if they were introduced before the books okay as you talked about writing I'll just quickly make a point and then you guys can come up and add on to that so writing you said and you quoted a writer very well here and I believe that writing is a nut do you believe that okay great so with the introduction of chat GPT do you don't you think that it's getting affected because now it's not even an art right now I mean people are just typing things up and it is giving you a whole of an article and nobody's thinking about it I mean nobody's making doing any brainstorming any research for that matter and they're giving you the whole article it's killing the art don't add the writers you quote you won't get any writers to quote later on but you still need to think of what you have to write you give a prompt it gives you all the answers it is hindering creativity it is forcing us to limit our thinking uh don't you see university students they are getting plagiarism charges they're getting plagiarism for homeworks and tests and they have to sit in front of a committee and they have to say that we didn't do we didn't use chat GPT but they in fact use chat GPT and that and that's true uh also uh not only writing uh artists also lose their jobs because um other people use uh AI tools such as mid-journey uh die etc to produce uh other writing scripts or for or um majorly images etc don't you think that is killing other killing original writers which I write anymore we are all become what do you have to say on that your take see like I've said it's again person to person see even books have existed for a long time and there have been books on every topic so people who copy now who don't use their creativity now people like those exist existed earlier also they must have copied from books and so when they copied from books they had to read it they had to figure out what they're writing right now you don't take a chance you don't know yeah I'm using your brain you just need to get the answer okay so see if you are referring to a particular book you are just like restricted to a array of the information but if you're using the AI tools you get more information about that how are you saying that using chat but also promotes plagiarism and also promotes laziness uh submission is always online so you just copy and paste it you don't read it you don't recheck it but I believe it is person to person I never how is it typing person to person see it's it's it's very it's like two sides of a coin for example someone created the pen now someone can use it to do anything that you can use it to write in some action we can use it to give someone it literally depends on person no the whole purpose of charging that is to what actually the real purpose is that you write your thing and then you can give it to chat gpt for the correction or but that's what that's what people do no people do they put a problem they notice all the people it is also on chat gpt and even if it's on the people when you use chat gpt we have the tools which identify chat gpt so that can be resisted there is a good point to destroy the world of technology it was to not to attack exactly the energy was converted to electricity it was for the benefit for the people it's on how you how you use it we're using it so it's about how we shape technology and then technology shapes yeah basically then ai is also replacing jobs what do you have to say about that yeah he's not replacing jobs it is replacing jobs day by day see the godfather of ai do you know who the godfather where jeffrey hinting he left google recently did you know why he left google recently because he said that he is worried what ai will do to the future but there are also jobs that can never be replaced by ai such as jobs of medical professionals and that of lawyers those can never be there can't be recently there was a test conducted let us begin then you go right japan has already started making robots which can replace doctors yes even if ai is replacing jobs it is this relieving okay where people get income how will they live millions of interleavers are at risk of jobs and people have other jobs right now they are speaking but in the but jobs aren't available every day ai is taking jobs day by day all of the jobs is working let them also make a point guys okay but you're also largely overlooking the fact that because of the it sector these technological advancements so many people have gotten jobs in these sectors and then it's not just always taking away the jobs but they are they're providing no jobs exactly any technology is not all about ai like i stated like my teammates stated again we're so familiarized with the term that oh anything with a screen something black something with a keyboard or some clicks is technology which is not technology see unemployment like she stated the it sector is the biggest employment source right now in india as well as if you really look into the rural areas women who have literally gotten no education they are getting employment something as simple as a sewing machine is giving them employment and at large levels and they're feeding off of their family from that okay so and not even that i would like to make a stance that we have to learn how to work with ai we have to learn how to do work integrated with ai then there are many jobs coming up but there are a lot of people who do not know how to work along with that and then they're like jobless so that's how they will learn things we always have to keep changing you just said that the people above 35 they learn something new they're very unfamiliar with it and they don't they don't really like adapt it right so the people above 35 right now if they get to like they get a job offer and it is something ai related and they're not familiar with them what then see they must be jobless their families have nothing okay they must be there must be something that they must have what is that something how but that's getting replaced by that's what we're seeing i'm not only ai even automation is affecting us okay we'll set aside ai we won't talk about ai what about the automation factories what about those labourers who do not have access to all this technological stuff you're saying who do not have access to it sectors who are doing manual work you know automation factories is so common now so they are also getting their jobs replaced they have nothing to do they cannot feed their families they cannot put food on the table what do you think the people who were involved in the development of these technologies also bought jobs because of the development of the sector see india being a land of such diversity amongst people we have technology in everyone's hand now technology is not being restricted to a smartphone they may have a key phone as well and i think we have literally missed the point of one of the most biggest technological revolutionary revolutionary ideas ever done which was upi and it accelerated during the covid-19 pandemic after that you i literally i'll literally give you example you go to any part of india let that be a market in Delhi for example charnichow you go there and you suddenly say to a shopkeeper bhaiya i don't have any money on me would he accept digital transactions and he would everyone has that qr code with them may that be a shopkeeper someone on the streets or even a vegetable vendor everyone that is how easier that has made to hack people can easily hack your account and get all that money in one go you know rbi has proposed one thing that if you have been hacked in 24 hours you can complain to rbi or your respective banks and you they can your money can be refunded okay true what about the increased number of frauds that are happening okay i agree with your point that rbi has provided that time limit that you inform in 24 hours but how many of how many of us know that we also have to provide awareness to that and sometimes these like we get hacked and sometimes we don't even know that we got hacked yeah and like 24 in like given that 24 hours and when that's over and then we had to know it's we got hacked what about that that's a very good point and you initiated that we must spread awareness how are you planning to do that in a country of almost a billion people without technology and it's not like we're not trying we're trying our best by running the advertisements of rbi and you could hear it in tv the radios and stuff like that we tend to see these advertisements on our daily basis like we could see the posters on the markets like it's really we get that technology is helping us but there are more negative aspects to it and you cannot neglect it we are saying that you should address the negative issues about it and we need to come up with appropriate solutions to it so india being an agrarian economy uh in this country farmers used to suffer for many many years because of the erratic rainfall and the infertility of the soil but nowadays with the improved technology the farmers can use hyv and also meteorological advancements that have increased in the last few decades the farmers know when they should exactly sow their crops and when to exactly harvest so don't you think that's with the help of technology this problem is being solved but that's why the government is providing subsidies and relief relief funds to the farmers in the most remote areas of the country can we also talk about environmental degradation the accelerating rate of industrial waste which is running our rivers our soils habitat in fact let's talk about mining of cobalt to make cell phone batteries you know how it is happening in vulnerable environmental locations what do you have to say about that isn't it ruining our habitat you talked about it's talking it's also believe just tell me how what happens to the waste which is produced at our homes or any kind of waste it gets de-cycle right and how does that happen it is all because of technology there's a lot of employment in the IT sector right and there are people getting employed because of IT and AI sectors so what about in a few years when they get like these people only because of technological advancements make robots and AI that replace those jobs it won't be the biggest sector because of AI and because of ID because it will those things will replace those people and again unemployment it's all leading to unemployment uh technology has degraded our quality of life like for example if we even have to travel for one kilometer we book an ola or an uber but we don't work or as an example we use alarm clocks to wake up and it's not natural for our body to wake up at five or six like earlier new earlier human beings used to so earlier it was natural no it's the same it's it's the same now it comes to would you walk down from here to Chandigarh just by yourself i'm not talking about such a long distance i'm talking about short distances even short distances isn't it your personal choice well it's so it's degrading the environment is degrading our quality of life it's maybe that's more dependent on technology and that is the whole point to not be dependent and is not affecting your health for example um you also mentioned a point about VR headsets isn't affecting our health because um VR headsets are putting in blue rays which are extremely harmful for our eyes directly into our eyes but no one is asking you to use these VR headsets for five to six hours on end main point is isn't technology affecting our health no if you're talking about health i think the advantages which technology has caused in the health sector are more than it's disadvantage mental health is also in the health sector right these technological advancement they've led to deep learning in AI are you aware of that yes yes yes it creates a hyper realistic video which is which seems genuine but in fact they're completely fabricated now imagine one day you're scrolling through your instagram or something you see a video of yourself doing something you've never done before what about then that's that's literally that's literally what's causing the technological advancements are causing that because people are it's leading to that but it wasn't created for that it also why why was it created but then it's being misused then it comes down to the responsible utilization as why was it in your opinion why was it created then i'm not saying that see AI was not created for wrong purposes obviously not it was created to help individuals it comes down to the responsible usage as an into as an individual no one is forcing you to use it for the wrong purpose but it's used so vastly that now people use it for everything and that's why cyber laws exist i don't follow it too yeah we should be following every thing yeah that's my government is hiring cyber warriors you know from every from very young age Just yesterday I saw a video of Antwona Dolly saying something completely out of character about her children which was completely fabricated but it looks so real that anybody would believe it. What about their personal life? What about those celebrities? They have feelings too you know. But we also have tools to identify whether it was fabricated or not. It's not always detectable. It is not. It is not. Some people are that good that it's not detected. Even if they detect it, detect that the video is fake, how will you tell the people who have already seen the video? It is already been checked multiple times. They already think that it's real. By creating awareness through technology. So, you will create awareness about every video. You will create awareness about every video. The fake blood is thin lines between reality and fiction. It makes us question about the authenticity of what we see and hear in the digital world. It is very common. See, everything will have a good and bad point eventually. And we agree that what we are trying to say is that technology has advanced so much that people are getting too much engrossed in it. And then they are using it for negative purposes. Literally anything can be used for a negative and a positive purpose. Don't you think so? But technology has advanced. But advancement has been so much that people are now more... The darker side is bigger than the brighter side. It has been. Now let me talk about dark wear. Recently there's a video viral on the surface where of two people wearing masks and on life killing someone. And then children more often go on that dark web and see all those videos which ultimately leads to that serial killer mindset. Okay. Now my point. Do you think in the past when they were hanged in front of every villager of the village or every people of the town, what do you have to say about it? Children were there. How is that related to technology? Exactly. Because now he's putting a point that... You are putting a point that children are going to dark web. No see, we never said that they should get hanged in front of the children. End of the day. People are doing murders. End of the day protocol. Let's talk. People are doing murders just for the sake of content of the dark web. So they get paid and whatnot. Kill people for their satisfaction. But that's a dimension again. You are not supporting technology. First through advancing. I know you were talking about children. We have the inter protocol on our networks which restrict us to go to the dark web. It's not too advanced. For a child to access the dark web, the child has to get a really, really lot of knowledge which is impossible and to access the dark web. It's very easy. Okay one at a time. Very easy. You guys have seen people do it. Yeah I've seen people do it. I bet you have also. Again in our generation that's not possible. You had a point. I had a point that we talked about AI. We talked about dark web. Now let's move on to the quantum computers. Do you even know what are the quantum computers? They are the new technology arriving. The quantum computers are actually able to solve everything. They are the most enhanced computers. You read the micro, the micro is making people more dependent. No, it's not making people dependent. It was a mathematical calculation which could be solved by the computer in like 56 years. But it's now solved by the quantum computer in 54 seconds. So it's like helping us. It's not making us dependent. Solving those things by ourselves using our own big thing. Do you think it's even possible for a human to solve such a big calculation in his lifetime even? Yeah. You know what? Computer takes 56 years. Can you imagine? You know that the moon exists today right? You know that the sun is not revolving around the earth but instead the earth around the sun. These are very, very, very complex calculations. But these are all done by humans only. They make a human shopper. These were all done because those people back then did not have the technology to do it. They did not have quantum computers. They did it themselves. Nowadays, our generation people are so dependent on this technology that we do not create that mindset only. To conclude, while technological advancement obviously had a very big positive impact on the whole world, we should not overlook the darker side of it. It's imperative that we find a balance between advancing technology and addressing these significant issues for the betterment of our society as a whole. It leads to us being assured in social isolation. It influenced upon our privacy as a base in the environmental degradation and presents us with unsettling reality of defects. While I completely agree that technology brings a lot of advantages in our lives, we cannot just neglect the negative aspects of it. Job displacement, privacy concerns, environmental problems, social isolation and many other problems are there. And we need to address these issues. It is imperative that we all come and find a common solution. Technology can be misused and it can threaten the very foundation of a free and democratic society. Somewhere down the road, technological advancement will become a threat to humanity. People experience various mental health issues like, for example, people experience... People frequently experience FOMO. Have you heard of FOMO? Fear of missing out. They can't live without scrolling through social media for even a day. We do not need technology to harm our health. We need it to help our healthcare societies. I conclude with the saying that technology is a useful servant but a harmful master. So as long as it's in our hands and we're using it for the benefit of the society, it is good and see everything has both sides, everything has two sides. If we see technology, so you talked about job displacement, but we also talked about how the IT sector is creating more jobs. You talked about social isolation. But I believe that technology has resulted in making people get closer during the COVID times through VEDA calls and everything. So like I said, everything has two sides and it is on us how we're using it. We shape technology and the technology shapes us. And I would like to conclude by saying that we wouldn't have been able to get out of the COVID-19 pandemic if it wasn't for the technology. Exactly. Technological advancements have not been a clean slate. That's completely for sure. As we went on through the debate, we realized how harmful it is. But it has a very brighter side which is way brighter than the darker side. And I would like to conclude by stating one basic universal principle. We learn from our mistakes of the past and then we build on the present. That's a place where we lead the future and that in itself is the very essence of technological advancements. Right, I agree. So basically with the implementation of technology in various aspects of our life, of our society, it can be both helpful and harmful. But for the betterment of our people, for humanity as a whole, it's just best to stick to the positive usage of it. We should not go ahead and commit wrong acts with the technology and AI tools. So it's best if you use it for your betterment. Constructive purposes. Well to conclude, I would say that technology, bone or vein is very confidential. Also, World Bank even stated that due to technological advancement, the most of the economic growth was substantial. Okay. So these were the final comments. Well, that was very prolific discussion and both the groups made some very good points. So to conclude it all, I'll say that in a way, technological advancement is both fruitful for us as well as it has its repercussions. And therefore, how you use this technology shall determine whether it'll prove to be an absolute bone or a real vein. So on that note, this is Shivani signing off for now. But we will be back with yet another topic and young energy. Till then, stay tuned. Namaskar.