Sep 24, 2026 · 33 min · 10 segments
As AI makes work faster and easier, what might we lose along the way? Bala Muthiah explores the hidden cost of convenience, why productive friction strengthens learning and judgment, and how we can…
Rishad TobaccowalaHost
Bala MuthiahGuestSo to a great extent, the breakthroughs for humanity are in solving age-old diseases, potentially having breakthroughs in fruit production, potentially new ways of building so people can have homes.
There is a lot of potential abundant surplus that is likely to happen from these new breakthroughs.
I truly believe that the breakthroughs are very significant and are likely to come much faster than people expect.
But at the very same time, as you say, humans have tended to sort of outlive everybody.
So I used to be in the agency business and people would always call advertising agencies dinosaurs.
So to a certain extent, you know, human beings also figure out how to scurry around.
You know, you think about it, we have Good Friday and we come up with Easter Sunday every day.
And the third, and this I think people underestimate, and maybe people in Silicon Valley, not you, but people in Silicon Valley underestimate, which is machines tend to be zeros and ones, yeses and nos, and people tend to be really messy.
And so you take the messiness and you take the communityness, right? And you take our daily resurrection.
So therefore I tend to be more in your camp, which is not necessarily Pollyannish, but much more pragmatic.
And I sense you walk the more pragmatic path, which is, there is sort of a way forward.
But there is this really basic belief that we will be kept out of the loop.
Because, you know, one of the people say, and there was this very famous saying, science fiction-like paper from Citrine or Citriani Research that basically says AI removes all friction and therefore all brands and all companies, and they have this useless case of DoorDash, that DoorDash is friction, et cetera.
So to a great extent, the breakthroughs for humanity are in solving age-old diseases, potentially having breakthroughs in fruit production, potentially new ways of building so people can have homes.
There is a lot of potential abundant surplus that is likely to happen from these new breakthroughs.
I truly believe that the breakthroughs are very significant and are likely to come much faster than people expect.
But at the very same time, as you say, humans have tended to sort of outlive everybody.
So I used to be in the agency business and people would always call advertising agencies dinosaurs.
So to a certain extent, you know, human beings also figure out how to scurry around.
You know, you think about it, we have Good Friday and we come up with Easter Sunday every day.
And the third, and this I think people underestimate, and maybe people in Silicon Valley, not you, but people in Silicon Valley underestimate, which is machines tend to be zeros and ones, yeses and nos, and people tend to be really messy.
And so you take the messiness and you take the communityness, right? And you take our daily resurrection.
So therefore I tend to be more in your camp, which is not necessarily Pollyannish, but much more pragmatic.
And I sense you walk the more pragmatic path, which is, there is sort of a way forward.
But there is this really basic belief that we will be kept out of the loop.
Because, you know, one of the people say, and there was this very famous saying, science fiction-like paper from Citrine or Citriani Research that basically says AI removes all friction and therefore all brands and all companies, and they have this useless case of DoorDash, that DoorDash is friction, et cetera.
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