Any radical change enabled by technology demands careful deliberation, but two potential shifts especially so. First, should central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) be designed to take over the deposit-gathering role of banks by paying their holders interest?
The central bank could lend that money to banks, which could progressively focus on risk-pricing as their key skill for on-lending. Indian banks anyway face a creeping deposit drought, with relief shots of liquidity from the Reserve Bank of India getting frequent. It calls for a deep debate.
The second shift needs an even deeper one since it’s already underway, driven by market forces. As AI agents eye human jobs, their pricing doesn’t reflect their true costs, which go beyond sunk R&D to costly variable inputs like energy.
Right now, AI is burning investor cash for a revolution without a visible path to profit. It looks like the biggest bet ever on supernormal profits years ahead—once agent users turn AI dependent, a switch-back to humans is deemed too disruptive and Agentic AI can easily be repriced to reflect the AI industry’s actual cost base. The huge stakes involved could well make the case for a global compact on intervention.