What can we learn from the Green Revolution about inappropriate technology and the importance of that in using AI for universal healthcare?

Date: 12-21-2025 at 04:36 

I wrote an unpublished essay, Why AI can be a blessing for India and Indians, the argument I made from the direct reflection of Marginal Productivity, which is different from productivity. We have developed a lazy thinking that technological progress equals productivity and that equals lower prices equals more sales, and therefore more hiring. 

However, when we look closely at the deeper variables such as net salary, net productivity, equality and inequality, you will agree, it is marginal productivity, not productivity. Steve Jobs’ argument of technology was " a bicycle of our mind”. Here, “OUR” refers to humans. Therefore, productivity that allows a human to achieve incrementally more is referred to as marginal productivity, not productivity. 

Unfortunately, there is no historical context of how a lazy productivity argument leads to uneven distribution of wealth and inequality in India. However, if we track west development and inequality, there is a clear picture of how marginal productivity and productivity distribution lead to equity. 

In brief, 1940 to 1970 was the golden period for the USA in terms of utilisation of technology with humans in the loop, which led to a significant increase in the marginal productivity of millions of low-skilled workers. It was the period of “Great Compression of Income”, also fueled by Ford's announcement of $5/day (double from $2.32) in 1914. This was one of the many factors that contributed to bringing the Gini Coefficient to a record low of 30. 

The next revolution (technology) was blindly focused on productivity, and the Gini Coefficient had been on the constant rise topping in 2019. Of course, technology allowed new work, which kept the balance and allowed low-skilled Americans to contribute to the economy. However, the USA has never been more polar, and the concentration of wealth at the top is a worry for the nation. 

At this point, we can agree that we are in the Intelligent revolution phase, and this is a significant transition from the technology revolution. Therefore, it is the best time to reflect on the past and learn to make sure the productivity is distributed, low-skilled Indians are integrated smoothly in the economy, the access to the fundamentals at an affordable cost to every Indian, and achieve the best healthy state for our country. 

We are at the beginning of the Intelligent Revolution, and this is the best time to reflect on the direction for the next 50 years. This essay is focused on AI in Healthcare. 

The Green Revolution started around 1940 in the West, all thanks to the accidental invention of artificial active nitrogen in 1909. However, the systematic revolution accelerated from 1940, primarily driven by the introduction of high-yield crop varieties (especially wheat and rice), modern irrigation, chemical fertilisers, and pesticides, which transformed global agriculture and food security. 

With India’s independence in 1947, the situation around agriculture and food was not that great; the agricultural output was not enough to feed Indians, even after the utilisation of high-yield crop varieties (rice). This was fundamentally because these hybrid crops were developed for the western soils, which completely failed on Indian soils and climatic conditions. The same was true for other developing countries like Mexico, the Philippines, etc. 

The Green Revolution, which started in west around 1940, accelerated around the world and in India after the involvement of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR). The breakthrough camp in 1966 with breading of a new hybrid rice variety, IR8 rice, which rapidly doubled rice production in the Philippines. IR8 rice and related cultivars were developed in collaboration with Indian research institutes and were soon adopted in India, revolutionising the country’s agriculture, in some places increasing yields by 10-fold.  

This was the first instant of confrontation with inappropriate technology. Unfortunately, we are in the mother of all inappropriate technologies, in the form of AI. Like most revolutions, the West has no interest in making that appropriate for Indians or for the world. Therefore, we need to start thinking about the future of the Intelligent revolution in Healthcare for India and for the world.  

The Indian government is already in action: India is developing its first National AI Strategy for Health, led by ICMR–National Institute for Research in Digital Health & Data Sciences (NIRDHDS), with technical support of WHO-SEARO and institutional support from Koita Centre for Digital Health (KCDH), Ashoka University. 

This is indeed great news, and I am sure this will benefit the nation; however, I believe the contribution by the private player, especially startups and the institutional research organisations, has to contribute in a higher proportion to leverage the Intelligent revolution for the benefits of Indians and for the rest of the world. 

India’s current healthcare is quite similar to India’s 1960s agriculture: we had a scarcity of food and a larger population to feed, millions of unskilled farmers, and the unaffordability of new machinery. Today, we have a shortage of beds, doctors, and front-line workers. With these deficiencies, we have an ageing population whose healthcare needs in the coming years are continuous.   

Fortunately, we also have technologies that, when used effectively, will bring a similar revolution as the Green Revolution, starting from India and for the world. 

Just on the marginal productivity, I see the opportunity to use AI to integrate millions of semi-trained healthcare workers into mainstream healthcare, I see the opportunity to increase the monthly salary for the contribution in delivering affordable healthcare, and I see an opportunity for Private Players to distribute the productivity to the rest of the population. 

What if we failed to do the above? I think we all can sense the inequality, the top-1% population has 40% of the national wealth - a super high wealth concentration at the top. The lack of job opportunities for low-skilled workers, the preferences of high-skilled (achieving that takes decades) workers by companies, and 5.5 Cr Indians going into poverty each year because they can’t afford healthcare. 

If we failed to do the above, I think our dream of becoming a developed nation will only be a dream because a nation can’t be developed by concentrating 50% of the wealth in the top 1% of the population. At this intersection of space and time at the mark we call India, our collective efforts will define the future of billions of Indians and humanity.