Civilising innovation: Tech policy challenge

The challenge is not adopting technology faster, but ensuring society, policy, and culture evolve fast enough to stay human

- SRINATH SRIDHARAN

ACROSS HUMAN HISTORY, every great technological wave has redrawn the boundaries of human possibility and anxiety.Fire extended survival but demanded restraint.

The wheel accelerated mobility but began the politics of territory. The printing press multiplied knowledge but weakened those who once controlled it. The industrial revolution mechanised production and created wealth at scale but also displaced craft, labour, and meaning.

Each breakthrough forced humanity to invent new forms of governance, morality, and identity. With every shift, the human mind itself has changed-its capacity for attention, reflection, and restraint steadily eroded by the very tools meant to empower it.

Today's digital and cognitive technologies multiply that pattern. Artificial intelligence (AI), neuro-interfaces,immersive media, and algorithmic platforms reach inward, altering memory,attention, judgement, and empathy. They influence the very faculties through which culture interprets reality. For the first time in human history, technology is not just reorganising human activity, but also reprogramming the human condition.

In less than a decade, India has become one of the fastest adopters of digital technologies in history. Over a billion people are connected through mobile devices. Hundreds of millions use digital payment systems daily. AI is already in our classrooms, workplaces, and governance. We celebrate this, as it signals ambition and scale. Yet beneath the euphoria lies a quieter concern: technology is evolving faster than our social instincts, ethical norms, and institutional capacities.This"cultural lag" is not unique to India, but in a society as plural, stratified, and layered as ours, its consequences cut deeper. Every newtechnology reshapes relationships, redistributes power, and redefines trust.