This is the tenth talk in the Prof. Avadhesh Kumar Singh Memorial Lecture Series delivered by Mr. Ranjit Lal on "Is Artificial Intelligence Stealing our Souls?" Mr. Lal is the author of around 45 books - fiction and non-fiction - for children and adults who are children. His abiding interest in natural history, birds, animals and insects is reflected in many of his books: The Crow Chronicles, The Life and Times of Altu Faltu, The Small Tigers of Shergarh; The Simians of South Block and the Yum-yum Piglets, The Tigers of Taboo Valley, Bambi, Chops and Wag; Birds from My Window; The Birds of Delhi; Wild City, The Trees of Medley Gardens, The Little Ninja Sparrows, Rumble in the Jungle etc. Currently, he has a column – Down in Jungleland – in the Indian Express ‘Eye’. He also writes a monthly children’s column for The Hindustan Times called Bratpack Brief. His other interests include photography, automobiles, reading and cooking. He lives in Delhi. In this lecture Mr. Lal ruminates some questions that question the influence, reach and impact of Artificial Intelligence on human life and human nature, especially during the time of pandemic when our dependency on this technology has grown more. He gives examples from our day to day life and raises questions like – if AI has enslaved our souls, if the growing obsession with keeping in touch through social media and obsession with selfies and the AI being able to track our shopping interests are already taking control of our lives, our choices and our behaviour. He emphasises the human need for real human emotions and human touch comparing it with the virtual world of emojis and interaction with robots. He also discusses how the growing use of artificial intelligence in communication and medicine lack the warmth of human touch and how this trend is reducing humans to cold machines. He discusses examples from movies and literature on the same line. However, he ends the talk by reading out a happy story written by him on Artificial Intelligence.

The following is the link for lecture:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXTyFaqaQDk