Paradox of Progress 'AI and agriculture'

Sri Lanka's experience illustrates why historical awareness and inclusive technology deployment are critical for shaping equitable futures

- By Jeevani Senevirathne

While the Neolithic Revolution is often celebrated as an unequivocal triumph, its complex legacy of social hierarchies and unequal benefits offers a vital lens for our current era. This paradox suggests that the transformative power of Al is not guaranteed to be equitable. Understanding the unintended consequences of our first revolution is key to consciously shaping our second, and ensuring Al becomes a tool for empowerment rather than a new form of inequality.

"Today's technology offers a second opportunity to shape civilisation, but only if we understand how the first one shaped us."- Yuval Noah Harari Two Revolutions, One Question Human history is punctuated by revolutionsmoments when our relationship to the world and to each other fundamentally shifts. Roughly 12,000 years ago, communities in several regions independently began cultivating plants and domesticating animals.

This transition, known as the Neolithic Revolution laid the foundations for villages, cities and states, along with writing. mathematics and monumental architecture. Now, as artificial intelligence (AI), quantum computing and the Internet of Things (IoT) transform economies and societies, many commentators speak of a 'second genesis'. Before celebrating or fearing this future, we should reassess what the first revolution truly meant.

Agriculture

The traditional story depicts agriculture as an unequivocal triumph: a leap from precarious foraging to reliable surplus, enabling population growth, specialisation, bureaucracies and urban life.

Yet critics point out its darker consequences.

Jared Diamond called farming humanity's 'worst mistake', noting that skeletons of early farmers show decreased stature, higher disease rates and shorter life spans. Yuval Noah Harari goes further, dubbing agriculture 'history's biggest fraud' because domesticated grains forced humans into longer work hours and poorer diets.