Shashi Warrier | Just Blame It All On The Chinese!

Murthy turned up on my doorstep one evening with a skinny young man in tow and a bottle in his hand. “My nephew Shanker,” he said, pointing at the youngster. “He’s a new engineer — graduated in September — and he’s joining Microsoft in Hyderabad next month. I’m taking him around to show him how to drink responsibly.”

Shanker seemed in his early twenties, with thick spectacles, wild hair, and a hunted look in his eyes with which I could sympathise. Prita came along then, and I could see that she, too, recognised that look in Shanker’s eyes. We led them in, concentrating on making Shanker feel at home — Murthy could make himself at home anywhere. But Shanker, instead of responding, just sank into a sofa and into himself, busying himself twiddling his thumbs. I gave up, served him his drink and turned to the others.

Murthy brought up the topic of President Trump and his Gaza Peace Board and whether India should join. I didn’t have an opinion, but Prita thought that India shouldn’t get into it. “Why not?” asked Murthy.

“Going by the charter,” replied Prita, not mincing her words, “you’d have to be really dumb to get into it. Paying Trump a billion dollars for the privilege of watching him spend all that money on making more out of Gaza than Palestinians ever did? No way.”

“We’ve got a year in which to think of paying Trump,” replied Murthy, “and it might be worthwhile having someone — a ministry of external affairs person — to take notes at meetings, just in case Trump blabs, as he’s been doing all along.”

“It’s a complete waste of time,” said Prita. “Not worth having even a clerk attend the meeting, because Trump will spread his opinions on Truth Social the morning after.”

“Of course he’ll scatter his views immediately after,” said Murthy, “but he’s going to downplay everyone else at the meetings. That’s what we need to know: how do others respond to Trump’s moves?”

“Trump’ll get rid of anyone who differs with him,” said Prita. “He withdrew the invitation to Canada after Carney’s speech at Davos. Do you seriously think the Pakistanis or Israelis or Tony Blair will contradict Trump?”

“Let’s wait to see how Russia and China respond,” said Murthy. “There’s no hurry to decide.”

At this point I noticed a gleam in Shanker’s eye that hadn’t been there before. “What do you say?” I asked him.

He coughed nervously and straightened up and stopped twiddling his thumbs. “Like Uncle,” he said, “I think we should send someone.”

“Why?” asked Prita, somewhat gently, remembering his social ineptitude.

“Because we can learn a lot,” he replied, “no matter what.”

“What do you mean?” asked Prita.

“Send in someone with a laptop loaded with an AI bot to record what Trump says,” replied Shanker, “and to put it together with everything else he’s ever said, and analyze it.”

“How will that help?” asked Prita.

“In many ways,” replied Shanker, growing more confident with each word. “One, it can create clips that’ll represent Trump in whatever way we like — as a dictator, an idiot, a farsighted strategist, a madman, whatever. Two, an AI bot can edit clips that show him contradicting everything he puts out on Truth Social. Three, it can give us insights on what he really wants to do.”

“Why do we need an AI bot to do that?” asked Prita.

“Speed,” replied Shanker. “We can have all this stuff ready within minutes of his saying something, or putting it out on social media. And we won’t even have to fake anything. AI will do the slicing and splicing, so there won’t be a shred of evidence that we’ve faked anything. If the government puts its mind to it, we can reduce him to a laughing stock every time he says anything on social media. We can flood the media with material — edited, not faked — that’ll put his constituency against him. We can block him.”

“Why do we need to attend the Board’s meetings for that?” asked Prita. “There’s already lots of data on stupid or greedy or warlike things he’s said.”

“Yes,” said Shanker, “but the Board is a place where he’s going to make sure he’s got only yes men, so the chances are he’ll likely get even more outrageous there. More inflammatory material, cheap.”

I sat up straight. Behind that bookish exterior lurked an online gladiator. “Why haven’t we already done all this?” asked Prita. “I’m sure we’ve had the AI tools for some time now.”

I noticed Murthy glaring. Shanker sank back into the sofa and polished off his drink. That burst of confidence when he’d spoken about AI was gone, thanks to “Uncle” Murthy.

“His glass is empty,” Prita whispered, nudging me. “Give him a refill. He’s earned it!”

I agreed, and poured him a large one despite a glare from Murthy. We waited for Shanker to take a few sips before Prita stepped in again. “I’m sure you have some ideas on why we haven’t already done it,” she said. “Tell us!”

The confidence seemed to return. “If we do it to Trump,” he said, “Trump’s people will retaliate even harder. And it’ll spread. Everyone will start doing it, and it’ll get real ugly real soon.”

“So, you’re saying we can’t do it!” said Prita.

“Oh, yes, we can!” said Shanker, polishing off his second and holding the glass out for more. “Xi Jinping and gang don’t bother with their public image. Trump can’t hit back at them because their Internet is so tightly controlled. So just fake it to look like the Chinese did it!”