India, April 21 -- Artificial intelligence is the most powerful technology the world has built in a generation. It is also, so far, almost entirely designed for the wrong people. The industry's default assumption is abundance. More computing power, more money, more data, more everything. The most advanced AI models cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build and burn electricity that could power small cities. This is innovation engineered for people who already have everything, and it is being sold to a world where most people have very little. That contradiction is not a footnote to the AI story. It is the central problem that will determine whether this technology fulfils its promise or simply widens the gaps that already exist.

That...