Education and healthcare are now controlled by their respective private sector mafias in India. And this is not good for their customers (students and patients) or for the country.
However it is great news for loan sharks and insurance companies. Loans make all kinds of products and services affordable by deferring upfront payment. Insurance does something even more sinister. It spreads the cost of treating sick patients across large populations of healthy individuals by making them all pay insurance premia.
Ai can and should play havoc with the business models of both private hospitals and private universities.
Thanks to Ai – education will need to shift from a broadcast model of one syllabus taught to everyone to a personalised model wherein each student learns different things at a different pace. Having a teacher in a classroom or having a classroom at all makes little sense. Borrowing money for such a course makes even less sense.
Education has to shift from college to the office. It is not students but employers who will pay for education. And to collect that money, colleges will have to provide education to students at their workplace. This means no campuses and no preset fees.
Healthcare too has to shift from the hospital to the home or office. Again employers have to pay.
But the ability of businesses to provide employment itself is going away. So who will the new employers be.
They are not going to be entities who have a conventional employer – employee structure or model. But would rather be some combination of capital, machine, university and gig workers.
The contours of this structure have yet to evolve. All one can say safely at this stage is that the current format will not work. And a new format will emerge.
One format with potential is the ICAI format. The Chartered Accountacy institute money collects annual fee from alumni for life. And makes very little from exam or academic services per se.
If we extend this to the IITs, we have 50,000 students in the campuses absorbing Rs 10,000 crores of grants. What if the students are all free and the 500,000 alumni have to pay – they would just need to pay an annual license fees of Rs 2 lacs to continue having the “IITian” title. The faculty and college have to now focus on continued education of the alumni instead of new students.
Now come to healthcare – ai allows shifting of the onus for health from the service provider of insurance company to the patient himself. If he is not healthy, he will not be able to work or deliver. And would need to rely on social security.
Most people will not be able to visualise this right now – but will do so in a few years. Hospitals and doctors will have to step back from charging the sick to paying a penalty if someone falls sick.
Wellness insurance vs sickness insurance
More later
Suffice to say banks won’t survive.
Nor will conventional hospitals.
Or private universities.Activate to view larger image,
