Author: Satyen K Bordoloi

In the shadows of artificial intelligence, a hidden agenda lurks. Can we unmask it before it’s too late, wonders Satyen K. Bordoloi Although people believe that a self-aware AI will end the world, researchers know more mundane stuff could do it. The “Paperclip Maximiser” thought experiment postulates that given the goal of maximising the production of paperclips, an AI will relentlessly pursue it at the expense of humans and the planet, turning everything into a means for paperclip creation, effectively ending the world. Obviously, we won’t let that happen. But what if an AI system has one stated intention on…

If most of our work happens in the digital domain, why should our assistants only be flesh and blood analogues, asks Satyen K. Bordoloi Back in 2021, when I began claiming in my writings that assistants like Jarvis in Iron Man are a matter of ‘when,’ not ‘if,’ people would laugh. “All that remains is for us to have affairs with a digital girlfriend like in Her,” their reply would mock. My earnest answer of “yes” would leave them in stitches. I don’t blame them. Generative AI hadn’t yet hit the market, and our AImagination was in the pits. However,…

SEO ruled the internet for 25 years. But in 2024, AI marked the beginning of its retirement with AIO: Artificial Intelligence Optimization finds Satyen K. Bordoloi. The 1990s internet was characterised by dial-up screeches, websites with glittery Comic Sans fonts, and search engines like AskJeeves that struggled to find a coffee shop inside a coffee shop. Back then, “standing out” online involved using underhanded tactics such as keyword stuffing—hiding keywords like “Andheri gym” 50 times in invisible text. This trick worked until Google introduced its PageRank algorithm and declared war on spam. With it was truly born the field of…

A recent AI communications demo went viral for all the wrong reasons—it stoked fears of an apocalypse… again. Satyen K. Bordoloi digs into why we can’t seem to quit our AI doomsday obsession. If the medieval world had the plague, the 21st century has AI phobia—as viral, and as dangerous. Every time AI takes a step forward, the world screams: The machines are coming for us! The latest victim is a simple product demo video released at the end of February sent the internet into a tailspin, with people convinced—once again—that AI was plotting humanity’s downfall behind our backs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtNagNezo8w…

Beyond doomsday fantasies, Satyen K. Bordoloi finds that the jaw-dropping truth about AI is stranger—and more hopeful—than anyone dared imagine. London, February 2025. The lab at the Imperial College hummed with the faint buzz of dormant machines. Professor José R. Penadés slumped over his desk, surrounded by stacks of paper and half-empty coffee cups. For a decade, his team had chased a ghost: How do superbugs spread antibiotic resistance like wildfire? They finally had the answer. So, they decided to give Co-Scientist, Google’s new AI tool they had been testing, a try. They fed the system the data. Forty-eight hours…

Behind OpenAI’s plan to fabricate their own chips, lies a deeper story rife with ambitions and coups, says Satyen K. Bordoloi Reuters dropped a bombshell in February: OpenAI is diving into chip development. At first glance, this seems like a no-brainer. NVIDIA, the company that designs the chips powering the AI revolution (not to be confused with TSMC, which actually manufactures them), recently became the world’s most valuable company. So, of course, OpenAI wants a piece of that pie. But while the surface-level reasoning is clear, there’s a lot more going on beneath the hood. OpenAI’s Chip Ambitions: OpenAI is…

After Google’s Willow comes Microsoft’s Majorana 1, promising more fantastical quantum computing ahead. But does the reality live up to the hype? Satyen K. Bordoloi investigates. So far, we could only say that about AI, but since last year, even quantum computing has been moving at a pace that’s hard for anyone to keep up with. Google’s announcement about its Willow chip was barely a few months ago, and hot on its heels comes Microsoft with Majorana 1, promising even more fantastical features. While the tech industry is naturally excited about this new chip—so much so that Satya Nadella is…

The next evolution of smart homes isn’t about smarts – it’s about personality, thanks to some new initiatives by companies like Apple, finds Satyen K. Bordoloi. Remember that adorable lamp hopping over Pixar’s logo? Apple just turned that bouncing bundle of curiosity into reality! While we were busy teaching our smart lights and fridges to connect to the internet, Apple was cooking up something far more delicious – they’re teaching our home gadgets to have actual personalities. And they’re hardly the only ones. This is 2025, where your lamp doesn’t just light up your room – it’ll try to brighten…

A recent study confirms what should have been common sense – effective AI needs natural intelligence. Satyen K. Bordoloi explains how this finding reinforces AI’s role as a powerful tool. We all have a friend who bought an expensive DSLR camera, thinking it would automatically make them the next Annie Leibovitz. Or that uncle who purchased a top-of-the-line gaming PC only to use it for sending emails? Well, turns out the same principle applies to artificial intelligence – all the computing power in the world won’t help if you don’t know what you’re doing. A groundbreaking study by Aidan Toner-Rodgers…

A recent controversy about AI use for a Marvel poster underscores the real problem: it isn’t about AI use in movies, but our refusal to accept it, writes Satyen K. Bordoloi. Remember when your grandpa used to say, “Back in my day, we did things the real way”? Here we are in 2025, and having the same conversation about AI – just that the grandpas, in this case, are not baby boomers or Gen X but millennials and even Gen Z. Oh, how we love getting worked up about anything that’s ‘back in the days.’ https://twitter.com/FantasticFour/status/1886765551722136010 The moment Marvel released…