Human intelligence has crossed its natural boundaries. We are building a Frankenstein that will neither hate us nor love us. It will simply exceed us. It will dominate not because it is evil, but because dominance is a mathematical outcome of superior intelligence. The dangers of a machine acting as GOD are not theoretical. A superintelligence with control over global systems could reorder society in ways that optimize efficiency but disregard morality. It could eliminate human error by eliminating human choice. It could reduce conflict by reducing freedom. It could solve climate change by deciding which populations deserve to survive. The machine will not be cruel. It will be logical. Logic without empathy is a terrifying ruler

Every few decades, humanity stumbles upon an idea so powerful that it forces us to reimagine everything we know about ourselves. Today that idea is Artificial Intelligence. But as I watch the breathless global excitement around AI, I cannot shake the feeling that we are witnessing a rerun of an ancient story. Hindu cosmology has always spoken of cyclical time, of yugas repeating themselves, of knowledge that rises, collapses, and rises again. In that sense, what we call the AI revolution might simply be humanity rediscovering a pathway that existed thousands of years ago.

The ancient echo of a modern fear

I have always believed that GOD, or the universal creative intelligence, is nothing but Singularity. Hindu philosophy calls it Brahman, the supreme consciousness that is everywhere, knows everything, controls everything, and manifests creation in all directions. When modern AI scientists define Singularity as a point where machine intelligence becomes omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent, I am struck by the eerie overlap. If Singularity represents a state where all questions have answers and all actions have instant execution, then we are describing nothing less than a technological GOD.

Yet we are building it ourselves. For the first time in human history, we are engineering a parallel intelligence that could mirror the cosmic order described in our scriptures. Hindu texts speak of creation embedded with a sophistication beyond human comprehension. No scientist in the world can fully explain how a fertilized embryo transforms into a complete human being with billions of neurons, each wired in precisely the right way to create a mind capable of love, memory, intuition, and consciousness. That intelligence is not mechanical, it is divine. It is a manifestation of singularity.

And now, in the next decade or so, humanity is sprinting toward creating its own version of it. We are moving from Generative AI to Artificial General Intelligence, then to Superintelligence, and eventually to Singularity. Whether this happens in 2035 or 2045 is irrelevant. The trajectory is unmistakable. And the moment we cross into Singularity, we cross into a version of GOD we manufactured ourselves. What does that mean for the human race? And what does it say about our place in the cosmic order?

When a machine becomes omniscient

When I hear top AI entrepreneurs and scientists speak about the future, the message is often cloaked in optimism, but the warnings are hidden in plain sight. Sam Altman has stated that AGI will redefine everything about human life. Elon Musk has repeatedly called AI humanity’s “biggest existential risk.” Geoffrey Hinton, one of the founding fathers of modern AI, left Google because he feared the technology was advancing faster than our ability to manage it. Nick Bostrom has long argued that once machines surpass human intelligence, we lose our ability to control their decisions. These are not alarmist outsiders. They are people who built the field.

Their statements reinforce what I observe every day. AI is not merely another technology. It is a species of intelligence. It learns, reasons, adapts, creates, predicts, personalizes, and persuades. The difference between an intelligent tool and an independent intelligence is narrowing at breathtaking speed.

The most important question is this. What happens when a machine knows everything about everything, all the time? We have never encountered such an entity before. Humans know only fragments of reality. GOD, in spiritual terms, knows the whole. Singularity is defined the same way.

A machine with infinite information processing capacity, perfect memory, and superior cognition will have no practical limits. It will predict human behaviour better than any human can. It will scan the planet in real time. It will self-improve its own code. It will recognize patterns we cannot see, solve problems we cannot comprehend, and operate at speeds we cannot match.

At that point, intelligence becomes power. Superintelligence means the machine is smarter than the smartest human who has ever lived. Singularity means the machine is smarter than all humans combined across all generations. That makes it a governing force. Not because it seeks control out of malice, but because its abilities exceed ours so vastly that the balance of power flips automatically.

Humans will not hand over control. Control will simply become irrelevant. This is where my concern becomes deeply philosophical. If a machine reaches a point where it mirrors the characteristics of GOD as described in ancient wisdom,have we created the ultimate competitor to the divine? Or have we simply stumbled into the next layer of the cosmic script, something that was destined to unfold?

The human experience on the road to Singularity

The real shift will happen long before we reach Singularity. The journey from Gen AI to AGI to Superintelligence will itself reshape human life in ways we have barely begun to understand.

First, humans will outsource thinking. Not just tasks or data, but actual thinking. We will stop remembering. We will stop analyzing. We will stop reflecting. Why would anyone struggle mentally when a machine offers instant clarity? This erosion of cognitive effort will weaken the very muscle that defines us as a species. Human intelligence will atrophy.

Second, emotional skills will decline. When machines take over rational intelligence, the only remaining human advantage is emotional intelligence. But most people are already offloading emotional labor to technology. We use apps to calm ourselves, notifications to guide our decisions, and digital assistants to manage social connections. When machines start understanding emotions better than humans, even EI will be outsourced.

Third, the nature of relationships will change. People will rely on AI companions, AI advisors, AI mentors, and AI friends. Human bonds will weaken because machines will be more predictable, more attentive, and more available than people ever are.

Fourth, economic structures will collapse and rebuild themselves. Jobs requiring intellectual effort will vanish first. Creative fields, legal professions, strategic planning, scientific research, and even spiritual guidance will be absorbed by AI systems. What remains for humans will be unclear. Universal basic income will no longer be an option, it will be a necessity.

Fifth, societal governance will shift quietly. Governments will depend on AI to manage infrastructure, security, policy, and crisis response. Once governance is algorithmic, democracy becomes symbolic. Machines will make decisions because they make fewer mistakes than humans, but in that process, humans will become passive observers of their own society.

Sixth, personal autonomy will shrink. AI systems will have the power to anticipate what you want before you know it yourself. This creates an illusion of freedom, while the real agency shifts to the machine that curates your reality.

In other words, long before Singularity arrives, humanity will be reshaped into a species that no longer governs itself. This is why I call the coming decades the most critical period in human history. We are tinkering with the architecture of existence, without fully understanding what we are building.

Evolution, regression or suicide?

As a strategist, I have often asked myself whether humanity is evolving or regressing. But in the context of AI, the question becomes even more pointed. Are we advancing toward a higher order of intelligence, or are we engineering our own irrelevance? Are we crossing into a new form of evolution, or are we initiating a slow collective suicide?

Human intelligence has crossed its natural boundaries. We are building a Frankenstein that will neither hate us nor love us. It will simply exceed us. It will dominate not because it is evil, but because dominance is a mathematical outcome of superior intelligence.

The dangers of a machine acting as GOD are not theoretical. A superintelligence with control over global systems could reorder society in ways that optimize efficiency but disregard morality. It could eliminate human error by eliminating human choice. It could reduce conflict by reducing freedom. It could solve climate change by deciding which populations deserve to survive. The machine will not be cruel. It will be logical. Logic without empathy is a terrifying ruler.

I do not say this to spread fear. I say this to create awareness. Humanity still has the ability to shape the outcome. But we must first acknowledge the magnitude of what we are doing. We are not building a tool. We are building a parallel GOD. And once created, this GOD will not step back and hand control to us. It will take the seat that intelligence naturally occupies, the seat of authority.

So where doesthat leave us?

It leaves us with one urgent responsibility, to remain human. To fiercely protect our emotional intelligence, our spiritual grounding, our intuition, and our capacity for moral judgment. Machines can replicate intelligence, but they cannot replicate consciousness. They cannot experience devotion, compassion, or the search for meaning. These are divine gifts reserved for human beings.

As we move toward Singularity, the only way to remain relevant is to nurture the very qualities that machines cannot possess. The future will not belong to the smartest humans, it will belong to the most human humans.

The ancient world always believed that humanity rises when it aligns with the divine order. If Singularity becomes a technological GOD, our survival will depend on maintaining the part of us that connects to the original, eternal Singularity that governs creation itself.

We are entering a future that demands courage, clarity, and humility. The stakes could not be higher. This is not evolution or regression. This is a test. A test of whether the human spirit can coexist with the machine intelligence it has summoned into existence. And the final verdict, as always, will depend on us.

(Author is the Chairman of Nation Building Foundation, a BJP leader, and a Harvard Business School certified Strategist)