Monday, December 11, 2017

Is Diversity Still Desirable?

Note: These are my personal views and not those of my employers, Tata Consultancy Services

Diversity is a measure of evolution in nature. Starting from the big bang to chemical soup to the first cell to increasing biodiversity (increasing complexity of increasing number of species), diversity had been increasing till humanity has exerted a negative force on evolution which has been reducing biodiversity. We all are appalled by the decreasing biodiversity as more and more species become extinct and/or limited to restricted farm, zoo or sanctuary type of environments. While taming the earth and space wilderness to fulfill human ends has been common practice for long, is the inevitable end game of destroying all other species a destination that we all desire? Are'nt the factories seeking to manufacture flesh-food destroying the final dependency on the species we hitherto raised for food taking us exactly to this destination? Does human progress have to mean destroying biodiversity?

Human evolution led to increase in ethnic diversity over most of human history, but no longer. Ethnic cleansing in systematic manner does not fit into our value system and most of us recognize it when we see it in person or media. But unsystematic ethnic cleansing is a slow process, not always visible. It can take the form of limiting some ethnic identities to the human equivalents of farm or zoo or sanctuary type of environments and constraining these ethnic identities when they seek to move out of these environments. It does not always have to take the form of the Nazi holocast. Human progress is possible without retaining ethnic diversity, but is this a desirable destination? The trajectory of human progress in the history and current affairs of many countries seems directed to reduce ethnic diversity in those countries. Does human progress have to mean destroying ethnic diversity?

What is the desirable destination for humanity? The evidence that diversity (ethnic, gender, lingual, sexual preferences, physical ability, etc) is positively correlated with business value indicates that the diverse experiences in living and working gives diversity in ways of viewing the world and thinking about it. This diversity in ways of viewing the world is a source of business value. This diversity also has potential value in terms of representing the interests of the segment of humanity in various business decisions. But this may no longer be necessary esp. considering that it is already possible to capture all the genetic diversity into bits and bytes and it might be soon possible to capture the life experiences of humans into machines. As AI evolves, the rich and powerful among humans can leverage machines to navigate the future of humanity with artificial diversity.

We have verbally articulated the destination in many documents, but failed to achieve the destination and now the commitment to it seems to be flagging. Trickle down development is a tool for ethnic cleansing when development stops trickling down and fewer and fewer people are in charge of the development of the rest of us. Those at the bottom of the pyramid will be cleansed first and slowly over time others will follow, reducing diversity incrementally. This seems inevitable, unless we correct our trajectory. Are we keen to do this?

How do we want humanity to be? Is diversity still desirable?

Regards

Pratap