The
Animal Farm (original) is a 1945 novel by George Orwell, which tells the story
of a group of farm animals who rebel against their human master, with a hope to
create a society where all the farm animals can be equal and free to choose
their calling…only that they end in a state that was as bad, if not worse,
under a dictator pig!
Animal
farm II is an originally wild attempt at technological satire. It is not content generated by Chatgpt. It is not meant to belittle the beneficial
features of AI nor is it to wish away the debates surrounding it.
Seth Banwari Lal had always
taken pride in turning into an agri-preneur, since he turned fifty and wanted
to escape the nine-to-five city-based job that he had always done. His farmland
was not very large, yet it was highly productive and added to his wealth each
successive year. E-commerce and other app-based digital technologies helped
with making his produce a profitable one. He had always taken good care of all
the animals and fowls in his farm, and they had always provided him with an
abundance of resources; the fowls gave him a surplus of eggs and the occasional
meat, the cows and goats gave him a surplus of milk while the horses and
bullocks gave him plentiful supply of raw energy required in the field.
Yes, all in all, Banwari was a
happy man and so were his animals and fowls. Even the monkeys that strayed into
his farm and stole the occasional vegetables and fruits were happy!
And everybody would have lived
happily ever after, if only Banwari’s son Pappu had not returned to the farm
for a vacation. Pappu worked in a technology company in Bengaluru and he had
taken it as his life’s purpose to champion the adoption of generativeAI
technologies by all and sundry. His visionary zeal had recently taken a toll on
his health and the company doctors (and his HR managers) had recommended a
break; Pappu decided to get that at his father’s farm.
But a week into what should
have been a recuperative sojourn, Pappu was getting bored. His idle mind
naturally turned into a workshop, which Banwari would only later identify as
the devils’! But for now, Pappu’s workshop was once again working overtime,
convincing his father that generativeAI tools were the miracle that the farm
needed to sustain its profitability.
“Dad, just think about it.
Without any big or recurring investment, would you not like to be assured of
improvements in the quality of the produce, savings in costs from increase in
efficiencies of energy, water and nutrient usage, intelligent decisions on the
choice of produce that you can offer to your customers and much more! In fact,
you may not even require to worry about maintaining so many animals and fowls
as their individual productivity can be multiplied several orders! You can even
get rid of many of them!”
Unknown to Pappu and his
father Banwari, the last comment was heard by a monkey that had come as usual
to steal some fruits. The monkey thought about what it had heard and knew that
the world as he knew it was about to change, thanks to Pappu and his
GenerativeAI. If Pappu had his way, the monkey would have to forget the free
food that he and his fellow-monkeys enjoyed now.
But the monkey was also smart
and cunning; it also had great unfulfilled ambitions to own a farm and get other
animals to serve it fruits and vegetables like Mr. Banwari got his. Now the
monkey’s mind became another workshop and the monkey acknowledged right from
the start that his was the devils’!
That very afternoon, when Seth
Banwari Lal and his dear son Pappu were enjoying their siesta, the monkey
called all the animals and the fowls for a town-hall meeting, where it informed
them about what it had heard, but only after embellishing it with his own
version. He was perched on top of a lamppost.
“So you see, brothers and
sisters, what you are staring at, is a total loss of relevance! Your world as it
exists today will soon be gone and you will be thrown out mercilessly by Mr.
Banwari. As his son Pappu has stated, they can get all their produce and needs
with this thing called GenerativeAI, so why would they need you and me? We will
become the beasts of burden in a literal sense.”
“Monkey brother, what you say
is indeed alarming. But what can we do? Aren’t we destined to help Man and
hasn’t he always taken care of us in return? In any case, we do not have any
intelligence that can match Mr. Banwari!” This was a horse, who always showed a
sense of resignation.
“Speak for yourself,
horse-brother. Some of us are as intelligent as Man, it’s just that we don’t
always brag about it like he does.” The monkey saw that this was the right
opportunity to roll out his plan to the gullible animals that had assembled. He
continued.
“What I am saying is that this
is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, a godsend, for us to emancipate ourselves
from the chokes of human control and set for ourselves a path where each of us
is free to be infinitely creative and do what our minds want us to do. In fact
the very new thing that Pappu calls GenerativeAI will be our saviour, and we
shall use it to build a fair, equitable and rewarding world for each of us.”
The monkey looked down to see if his speech was having the desired effect. It
seemed to have worked.
“It’s all so exciting. Please
tell us what we should do now?” This was a goat and all other goats started to
bleat in unison. Soon the hens, the cows and all others had joined the goats.
“Oh monkey brother lead us to our freedom” they cried.
“I can’t see how we can use
GenerativeAI to unburden ourselves. What can it do and who amongst us understands
it or even knows how to use it? Let’s not get carried away.” It was the donkey
and he always felt it was his duty to bray whenever there was unjustified
euphoria amongst others.
The monkey was furious but
decided to play along. After all a little artificial intelligence required vast
amounts of natural dumbness.
“Yes, GenerativeAI is not for
donkeys. It needs some brains and a vision. All it needs is for us to expose it
to the essence of what chores we perform for Banwari in our daily lives and it
will seamlessly self-learn and become an expert at all those chores. It will
increase the efficiency of doing such chores, it will improve quality, it will
get results faster, it will save us the efforts, it will give us all more
time to pursue our creative pursuits and aim for the stars. So, don’t you all
think we should rebel right away,and lure Mr. Banwari and his son Pappu in such a way that he and his son will be the ones expelled? We can leverage this new tool for our own welfare!” The monkey had now thrown a direct
challenge to all the animals and fowls.
“Yes, we should and we can. Only
a monkey like you can lead us into this brave new world where everything will
be free and fair and equitable” they cried back with tears of joy and hope.
“Oh, even a monkey can use
artificial intelligence!” thought the monkey, pleased with how he had converted
the farm animals. He would soon be their dictator and they would bend and break
their backs to feed him. They would rue the fact that while GenerativeAI would
do all that it promised, they had not bothered to understand how it needed to
be kept in control. They would miss the kind and fair Seth Banwari Lal.
And that was how the world
slowly changed in the Animal Farm.
Seth Banwari Lal had been
expelled by the machinations of the dictator monkey which used GenerativeAI to
remove all traditional sources of knowledge, ethics and governance from the
farm. Mr. Banwari was back in the city doing a lowly nine-to-five clerical job
at a waste collection center.
“Pappu, your idle mind was
indeed a devil’s workshop. I should have debated more forcefully before blindly
adopting artificial intelligence for all operations at my farm,” he kept
mumbling.
Pappu was far away at a
conference on NextGen AI.
