There is growing unease about the speed at which artificial intelligence is developing. Some of the world’s most influential technology leaders and thinkers, from Bill Gates and Elon Musk to Yuval Noah Harari and leading figures in the AI industry, have warned that humanity needs greater caution, stronger safeguards and, in some circumstances, a pause to consider where this extraordinary technology is taking us.
Opinion | The AI Revolution: Why Humanity Should Not Be Afraid to Move Forward
Their concerns should not be dismissed. AI could transform employment, education, medicine, science, governance and warfare on a scale that is difficult to comprehend. It could create new forms of inequality, disrupt labour markets and empower governments and organisations with capabilities once available only to a few. For some, the concern extends beyond disruption to an existential risk: that increasingly autonomous systems could eventually develop capabilities that humans struggle to control. Whether such scenarios materialise is deeply contested. But the possibility itself justifies serious safeguards and international discussion. It does not necessarily mean that technological progress should be halted. The choice before humanity is not simply between uncontrolled acceleration and stopping the AI revolution. The more difficult challenge is to move forward while learning how to manage the consequences of moving forward. Much of the extraordinary acceleration in AI is being driven by competition between the United States and China. Both recognise that artificial intelligence is no longer simply another technology or commercial opportunity. It is becoming a foundation of economic power, military capability and national influence. The scale of investment is consequently enormous. Advanced computing, semiconductors, data centres, energy and telecommunications infrastructure are all being reshaped by the AI race. The more important question, however, may not be which country is ahead. The United States and China are developing different technological ecosystems, each with distinctive strengths. American strengths in frontier research, entrepreneurship, capital and computing coexist with China’s strengths in manufacturing, scale and deployment. If their competition can eventually evolve into a degree of complementarity, the benefits could extend well beyond either country. Competition can drive innovation. Cooperation can determine how widely its benefits are shared. That raises a difficult question. If the technology is developing this quickly, can the world realistically slow it down? Perhaps not. If one country or group of countries slows the development of advanced AI while others continue, the consequences could extend beyond economics. AI is already becoming a component of military power. The wars in Ukraine and the Middle East provide glimpses of what this could mean. Drones, autonomous systems, surveillance, targeting and intelligence analysis are changing warfare. AI is compressing the time between detecting a threat and responding to it. This makes international rules and safeguards essential. But it also demonstrates why simply asking the world to stop may be unrealistic. The challenge is to establish guardrails around a technology that will continue to develop rather than pretending that development can be reversed. History offers a useful warning against excessive technological pessimism-but also against complacency. Humanity has repeatedly been unsettled by technologies that alter not only how we live but how knowledge and power are distributed. It helped democratise knowledge, but also accelerated the spread of propaganda and conflict. The Industrial Revolution produced genuine social dislocation. The Luddites were not simply irrational opponents of machines; they were responding to the economic consequences of how new technologies were being deployed. Electricity, aviation, nuclear power and, more recently, the internet each generated their own anxieties. The lesson is not that every new technology is benign. Technological progress can create real losers as well as winners. Yet societies did not ultimately respond to these transformations by abandoning the technologies themselves. They developed new institutions, regulations, education systems and social arrangements to absorb their effects. For the first time, a technology may increasingly perform functions associated with human intelligence. That is precisely why the current debate deserves seriousness. But seriousness should not become paralysis. AI may prove to be one of the most consequential technological transformations in human history. Governments will have to rethink education and employment. Companies will have to accept greater responsibility for how increasingly powerful systems are deployed. Societies will also have to decide which decisions should remain fundamentally human. None of this requires abandoning the technological race. Developing countries do not necessarily need to build the world’s most advanced AI models to benefit from the technology. This also suggests a different way of looking at the US-China competition. The objective need not be for one technological model to defeat the other. If American and Chinese capabilities can eventually become complementary, rather than entirely separate and competing systems, the prize would be larger than victory for either side. It would be a technological ecosystem capable of delivering greater benefits to the wider world. This is where India has an opportunity that extends beyond simply joining the race. India is unlikely to match the United States or China dollar for dollar in frontier AI investment, nor should it necessarily attempt to replicate either model. Its advantages lie elsewhere: its technological talent, digital infrastructure, enormous market, democratic institutions and relationships across both the developed and developing worlds. India can become a bridge between technological ecosystems rather than another isolated technological bloc. It can work with the United States, Japan and Europe on research, infrastructure and advanced technology while retaining strategic autonomy. At the same time, it can help ensure that the benefits of AI reach the Global South rather than becoming concentrated among a small number of countries and corporations. India could help shape the environment in which the race takes place. The fundamental mistake would be to assume that humanity can protect itself from disruption by refusing to move forward. Progress has always carried costs. The answer is not to deny those costs, but to build institutions capable of managing them. The AI revolution has already begun. Humanity cannot simply step back and wait for the future to become less frightening. The more constructive response is to move forward with caution, confidence and imagination. For India, the opportunity is not merely to participate in the revolution. It is to help shape the world that comes after it. (Milinda Moragoda is a former cabinet minister and diplomat from Sri Lanka and the founder of the Pathfinder Foundation, a strategic affairs think tank) Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author
Because neither Washington nor Beijing wants to discover that it has fallen behind, competition itself is accelerating innovation. Because it allowed ideas and information to circulate beyond their control, the printing press was feared by rulers and religious authorities. Because it is beginning to transform not only how we produce things, but how we create, process and use knowledge itself, aI may be different in scale. Its risks therefore have to be addressed through safety research, regulation, international cooperation and social adaptation. The question is therefore not simply who builds frontier AI, but who learns to make it useful. Its role could therefore be larger than becoming another competitor in the AI race.
The World Development Report 2026 makes an important point in this context.
Its framework of “adopt, adapt and advance” suggests that countries can first use existing tools, adapt them to local languages, institutions and needs, and gradually develop the skills and infrastructure to advance further.
