Premchand and the AI sentiment

 (As posted on LinkedIn)

Premchand and the AI-sentiment

The world today seems to be wrapped in a fever-dream of AI and attention-conquest. To make sense of the crypt and script, I look to fiction, especially short stories by Premchand. Although Premchand wrote about a different time, place, and points of power, he masterfully captured the vista of ideological fiefdom. There are the landmark stories of ‘Kafan’ and ‘Godaan’, of course, but nowadays I reflect on the short story, ‘Bade Ghar ki Beti’ (loosely translated, it means ‘daughter of a big/ rich house’ or, in the case of most Premchand stories, of ‘upper class’).

The story goes thus: a woman from an affluent family marries into the house of a common teacher. The man and his family are sweet to her, but the brother-in-law is rough around the edges. Still, the lady accepts her married family as her own, and the lines dissolve. One day, the brother-in-law brings in two fowls and asks the lady to cook them. There is very little ghee in the kitchen, and the lady uses up the ghee to cook the meat. She is not used to rationing ingredients in the kitchen, so she cooks daal without ghee. When the brother-in-law asks her why there is no ghee in the lentils, she tells him that the ghee was used up in the chicken. The brother-in-law is most upset with this news. He had bought a good amount of ghee only a few days earlier. He accuses her of not being able to manage the modest means of her house because she is so used to living in luxury. The lady is upset and the matter comes to a head. She and the brother-in-law demand ‘batwaara’ (split of property) or an arrangement where only one of them can remain in the house. Considering the times in which this was written, the split of a joint family was perceived as a loss and ignominy of the worst kind. Families did not get divided. Period. It hurts the elder brother deeply to stay apart, but he understands that his wife has already made a lot of compromises. However, the wife notices the fractured pain of the house and just when the family has to be divided for good, she goes to the brother-in-law and tells him to let bygones be bygones. The family is re-united.

She is a ‘Bade ghar ki beti’, not because of class or wealth, but because of heart. How identities morph and shape because of our emotional alignment is usually what I have loved about Premchand’s works.

This story makes me think about the use of AI in my field. I hope it takes over completely. I hope it storyboards and reviews, attends meetings, discusses schedule, trains vendors, deflects blame, gives and receives feedback, architects workflows, calculates ROI on training, panders to egos, calls out the bloat of inept experience, negotiates money, etc. I hope that it does all of this so that each one of us is replaced. And when everything is AI-centered and AI-driven, maybe we will finally begin to investigate what exactly makes us, and our work, human. Then, maybe, the batwaara can be avoided for good.