A small college story about automation, inconvenience, and the patience every new technology demands_

Till late 1990s, St Berchmans college campus lived by the command of a simple manual bell. It was a round brass plate, struck with a wooden hammer, and its sound travelled across the campus with a familiar resonance. To students, teachers, and staff, that sound was more than a signal; it was part of the rhythm of the institution. During student strike days, many waited eagerly for the long ring that meant classes had been suspended and the campus could disperse. The bell depended on a person’s hand, and perhaps for that reason, everyone trusted it.

Then modernization arrived. Electric bells were installed in different buildings so that the signal could be heard clearly throughout the campus. When the bell rang for the first time, the students hooted loudly. Their reaction may have been playful, but it carried a message: people do not always welcome change simply because it is called progress. The old bell had character; the new one had efficiency. The campus had to learn to accept the difference.

A few years later, in 2004, another step was taken. A company offered to automate the ringing of the electric bell. The promise was attractive: set the timetable in advance, and the bell would ring on its own at the correct hours. The technician configured the system, stayed until four o’clock to confirm that it worked, and left after the management expressed satisfaction.

But that night, the campus discovered that automation does not merely do what we intend; it does exactly what we instruct. The bell rang through the night, from ten o’clock until four in the morning, at the same intervals meant for the daytime schedule. For the students of five hostels in S B campus, it was a nightmare. Sleep was broken again and again by the very system that had been introduced to make life easier. The next morning, complaints poured in. The agency was contacted, corrections were made, and the bell finally learned the difference between college hours and sleeping hours.

 AI: Benefits at a cost

That incident returns to my mind whenever we speak of artificial intelligence today. AI, like the automated bell, promises to release human beings from repetitive and routine tasks. It can save time, increase accuracy, and open new possibilities. Yet in its early stages, it may also disturb lives, unsettle professions, create anxiety, and cause hardship to people who were not prepared for the speed of change. The problem is not always the technology itself, but the gap between human intention and machine execution.

The lesson is clear. Every powerful technology must be guided by human wisdom, tested with care, corrected with humility, and introduced with concern for those who may suffer during the transition. Progress should not be rejected because it causes temporary discomfort, but neither should discomfort be dismissed as unimportant. The hostelers who lost one night’s sleep taught us that even a small error in automation can have a human cost.

As we move through the present travails caused by AI, we need patience without passivity and caution without fear. AI can become a blessing if society learns to question it, regulate it, improve it, and place human welfare above blind efficiency. The future need not belong to machines; it can belong to human beings who learn how to use machines wisely.