Yesterday I attended a meeting in my society to discuss the feasibility report with a firm, which in Mumbai is not just a project, but an emotional rollercoaster with blueprints.

There were long discussions, with an engineer explaining with great seriousness how the old building would give way to a new one that would stand proudly for the next fifty years, or at least till the next society dispute.

And then there was our young expert member.

Phone in hand. Thumb in action. Brain on silent mode.

While the engineer spoke about load bearing walls, FSI, and why the lift should ideally go up and down and not sideways, our youngster was deeply engaged in what I can only assume was a life changing scroll.

Every now and then he would look up, nod as if he had personally designed the Eiffel Tower, and then return to his device, possibly consulting his invisible advisory board.

Then came the moment.

He raised his head and asked his first question.

It had absolutely nothing to do with redevelopment.

The engineer paused, looked at him kindly, and answered as one would answer a child who had wandered into the wrong classroom.

Back went the head. Scroll. Scroll. Scroll.

A few minutes later, another question. Even more unrelated. At this point I began to suspect that somewhere he was asking Chat GPT on his phone, “What smart question should I ask in a redevelopment meeting?” and was faithfully being supplied answers without AI knowing which meeting.

The tragedy was not that the questions were wrong. The tragedy was that his listening was missing.

Redevelopment, for those who have survived it, is a serious business. It involves your home, your future, your temporary displacement, and your permanent arguments with neighbours. You do not enter such a discussion armed only with a charged battery and misplaced confidence.

At a crucial point, when negotiations were getting delicate, figures being discussed and commitments being hinted at, our young member once again prepared to enlighten us.

This time we had to politely request him to remain quiet.

It was done gently. But firmly. Like telling someone not to press the red button.

On the way back I kept thinking about this new habit we are developing. Instead of using AI to sharpen our thinking, we are using it to replace thinking altogether.

AI is not a shortcut to intelligence. It is a tool that demands even sharper analysis. You still have to understand the problem, listen carefully, and then ask the right question.

Otherwise, you are like a man attending a redevelopment meeting and asking about the colour of the curtains in a building that has not yet been built.

The danger is not that machines are becoming smarter.

It is that we are becoming comfortable being less so…!

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