AI moved your cheese: What to do when the inevitable is in front of you?
As I write this piece, people are still grappling to understand what is Artificial Intelligence? I take the liberty of comparing today’s situation to a parable of five blind men who had never seen an elephant but are told that this animal is the most powerful animal.
NewsBharati 11-Jun-2025 14:22:28 PM
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“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” – Arthur Ashe
Who Moved My Cheese? Is a book that talks of handling change. Cheese is your job, your food and when your food finishes go and look for it outside your comfort zone. That is in nutshell what this teaches.
Artificial Intelligence is a boon for some but a bane for many
I take the liberty of comparing today’s situation to a parable of five blind men who had never seen an elephant but are told that this animal is the most powerful animal.
When they are brought near the elephant one touches its leg and says that it is like a trunk of a tree. The other one touches its tail and feels it is like a thick rope with a bush at the end. Therefore, each has his own perception and they can never know what the creature is.
People are further confused about AI due to several factors, including a misunderstanding of what it is and what it can do, as well as the hype surrounding the technology. The term "artificial intelligence" itself can be misleading, leading people to anthropomorphize it and believe it's more like a thinking being than a tool.
Hi tech trends have a classical cycle:-
Peak of inflated expectations: Companies heavily promote the new tech, overexposing it in the market. It is happening here and now ‘grab it now or you will regret later’. There are AI boot camps for school kids! The newspapers and portals are oozing out AI. It is in your Phone, on your watch, in your CCTV system. There are hoardings banners TV/radio advertisements. ‘The world will change; it will revolutionise everything’. Social media is another trouble creator. People are pumping in money as investors expect great returns.
You soon may see adverts as ridiculous as - AI powered Car tyres giving you better mileage, AI powered gasoline for better engine performance. AI powered energy drink to build 6 pack abs in 20 days. AI powered reading glasses with which you can read 200 pages of a book in 20 minutes- pun intended. Mind you people will still believe, at least a large segment- that leads to debates with further chaos and confusion.
Trough of disillusionment: Users get fatigued from seeing the tech and it eventually reaches unmet expectations and falls out of the spotlight.
In the latest generated AI hype cycle, we entered the trough of disillusionment, in part due to gen AI projects failing to deliver value because of a ‘solution looking for a problem’, poor data quality, inadequate risk controls, escalating costs and failing to define the business return on investment (ROI) linkage.
‘I can make an invisible watch- very small’ but then how do you see the time? Catch 22 situation.
AI hype and Misunderstanding
Some reasons are given below
• Many people overestimate AI's capabilities, believing it can think and act like humans
• In fact, AI lacks common sense, social intelligence, and creativity, which are crucial for human-like intelligence. It certainly cannot make two machines fall in love with each other! Logic is 20% - success based on IQ but Emotional intelligence EI is responsible for 80% success of a person.
• The term "AI" is often used broadly, encompassing various technologies and applications, leading to a sense of overreach.
• Companies and organizations may use the term to attract attention, boost sales or get funding, even if their products don't truly represent AI.
• AI is a broad and evolving field, making it difficult to define and understand its scope.
• Different AI techniques and applications require different levels of expertise and knowledge.
• This can lead to disappointment when AI fails to live up to these unrealistic expectations
Be that as it may, the job market, is shaky and looks as volatile as the stock market- with little rationale for a small investor.
Around 60% have degree in computer science- many have learnt programming through different avenues. Have good hands-on experience.
Another way of looking at AI productivity is ‘writing code’ or programming in various languages.
It could be like ‘programming programs to program programs!
Therefore, the bottom of the pyramid which is the biggest will take the hit it seems.
“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old but on building the new” – Socrates
Handling the future shock
Most rudimentary advice is to ‘upskill’ and take it head on. But if a company has to shed 30% manpower, then 300 will have to go out of 1000. You are getting into a very crowded space- entering a narrow tunnel and also running- it is like a stampede.
Sometimes such situations force you to think out of the box and move out of your comfort zone. Today India is on the roll- government is encouraging people to become employers and not employees- become a job giver than a job seeker. You need to look at your inherent strengths and weaknesses too. IT profession is not the only profession in the world. Many of us went for software jobs as it paid well, many did not like it but stuck on as you got your pay check. But many found it being ion a mixer grinder 24 by 7 or on a treadmill sweating out every day- not liking the mundane job. Some even hated this claustrophobic, toxic air-conditioned environment doing the same thing every day thirty days a week- no fun left in life any more.
As Amitabh Bachchan says ‘jo maan ka who achcha aur jo maan ka nahi who aur bhi achchaa.’ This means some time the avenue that comes up afresh may be better than what you wanted.
You can take a collective call- if three four of you can get together and think of starting your own venture it can be a good idea. Have a team of four, with different strengths so that you have multi-talented team as a startup. It also gives you an opportunity to hedge your risks.
You being educated can attend seminars outside the IT field and take advantage of government schemes which most don’t avail of. India has changed and entrepreneurship is the way out.
In this age of opportunities and entrepreneurship, PQ – Passion Quotient - is the new game changer. Everyone has a passion for something specific which, if pursued, can yield spectacular results.
Plan to start small- don’t take two steps at a time- you may trip and fall.
You should like the field you are getting into- it is a track change. You must have or ability to have the talent ie potential and must find sense of satisfaction in it and of course hard work is required.
Just as an illustration, I have interviewed more than a dozen guys from IITs, IIMs and London School of economics who got into agriculture ads agripreneurs. These well educated left their jobs and went into new areas. Fellows from Cardiff University UK, ISB Hyderabad, Kingston University London, Michigan State University, Ross University New Jersey US, ICFAI and Delhi university, previously having occupied high paying lofty seats of power in the corporate corridors of Amazon, Citi Bank, HSBC, DBS, HDFC, Ernst and young, Accenture, IBM, Lucent, PWC, Siemens, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and ICICI bank to name a few.
Agriculture is not only about growing wheat or rice. There are people making millions out of mushroom farming or Bamboo.
There are stories of incredible success. They are the true inspiration for our youth, to turn around our nation, taking the seldom travelled path - the actual Christopher Columbus of next generation, not discovering another continent looking for pots of gold, but generating it in their own backyard- Bharat. They are true disruptors.
How many guys will keep delivering Pizzas and food orders, and how many start-ups will come up with salons and coffee shops in big cities living in cramped flats, paying through their nose and breathing polluted air? And for how long being in the same business line with an overcrowded, saturated marketplace with a near bumper-to-bumper drive?
Is this the way you want to end up? No, there are hosts of virgin business opportunities waiting for you. You just have to go for it- great clean life.
Hundreds of avenues, multiple streams and verticals.
This is the audacity of scope.
“Business opportunities are like buses, there’s always another one coming.” – Richard Branson
Virender Kapoor has authored two books relevant to this article.
1. https://www.amazon.in/PQ-How-Matters-More-Than/dp/9384052531
2. https://www.amazon.in/Millionaire-Virender-Kapoor/dp/9390507464
Virender Kapoor
A thinker, educationist and an inspirational guru. Kapoor is an Indian who wears many hats. An educationist of repute, he was the Director of a prestigious management Institute under the Symbiosis umbrella. He has emerged as a leading think tank in human behavior, motivation and success. As a celebrity author, his name appears with the likes of Thomas Friedman and Dale Carnegie. He has authored more than 30 books as of now which are on Amazon worldwide and several of his books are in the pipeline.