Filed under: Opinion

The Curious Case of Artificial Intelligence

Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where no one suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program, entire crops were lost. Some belived that we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world...But I belive, that as a species, human beings define their reality though misery and suffering. - Agent Smith, The Matrix
This is probably the best way to define the human case. Infact, it is the best way to define the case of any sentient species. It is not our advances that define us, but our failures and imperfections. Today, my friend and i were having a very animated discussion on Artificial Intelligence at office. He spoke of AI agents and fuzzy logic and i was going on and on about the powers and shortcomings of the Artificial Neural Networks. All that talk led us to how technology and science has advanced to some very brilliant leads in this vast and illusive field, which encompasses Computational Theory, Biology, The study of the Brain, Psychology and Mathematics. However, very soon we started talking about what is yet to be done and we soon came to a common conclusion: there is no point in understanding and studying artificial intelligence, if the final aim of the subject is to emulate human/animal thinking. Why? Simply because of the fact that human thinking is about how we make mistakes and recover from them, not how brilliant we are at coming up with the best algorithms and solutions. You ought to study Natural Stupidity instead of Artificial Intelligence to really get a grasp of how human beings think.

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Change the World or go home.

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The Blue Monster @ Microsoft
Scary? Don't be. This is what you will find on a few doors at the MS HQ. It can be interpreted in many ways. But, I chose to interpret it in a manner i will never be able to understand. Changing things is a very difficult thing to do. Changing the world is almost impossible. For most parts of our lives we end up trying to solve tough problems and manage to make the best sense of what life is, in our own context. To speak specifically about coders, they, we try to work out solutions for complex problems and feel elated about it. To be intelligent is good. But, what good is anything, if not met with true purpose. For me, true purpose is something that which brings change for the good. Something that makes lives better. Something that inspires me to do more, that which i am already doing, not because i am good at or need to be better at it. Instead because, it brought a smile to someone's face. While i was being an intent listener, someone today told questioned the point of doing research if one has to watch its results from one's grave. And i asked my self what would have happened if every great discovery or invention was viewed with such contempt. I do not hope or expect to effect direct change in some life in the poorest corner of this planet. I hope that what i do today, hopefully be used to change things in this world. It is with that simple idea that i wake up every morning. This was an abstract post meant to ask you one simple thing as a coder and a person of science and technology: What have you done to change the world around you? And how did you use technology to do it? Still thinking? Worried that whatever you have done was of no use but yo your own self and no body else's? Scared? Don't be. Because, it is ok to be like that. It is ok to be intelligent for your own next increment in pay. It is ok to be who you are. Change is difficult. Unless of course, you want to change and that is a start.

The Single most Important thing for a Coder

I was having this discussion with a friend of mine today as to what the most important thing for a coder is. Is it good coding ability or good coding standards? Is it about writing basic code which everyone can read or is it about writing brilliant code which no one can fathom, leave alone understand? Is it about knowing one technology/API/framework to a point from where you can rebuild its competitor technology/API/framework, or is it better to have a decent working knowledge of most known technologies around you? I keep having this talk with a lot of my friends and fellow coders. There are many attributes to this ever debated and talked of topic. However, there is this one standard denominator which puts all those talks and debates in unison.

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The Attitude to Search

Second Year of Engineering, boring lecture in motion, fed up. Some of us stand up to tell the teacher that we have no interest in enduring this ordeal. The lecturer tells us that in no event will she teach the on-going topics, which is recited out for us to register, ever again. We walk out and one of my friends says out aloud, "Google maar lenge", Hindi for "We will google it."

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