Author: Satyen K Bordoloi

The AI surgery robot learned by watching videos and outperformed humans on the operating table, finds Satyen K. Bordoloi In India, during the 1980s and 1990s, surgery was a significant event. Families went scouting for a surgeon with ‘accha haat’ – a good hand. However, the advent of computer-aided surgery meant that when my father had to undergo knee replacement surgery in 2014, the doctor at GNRC Hospital, Guwahati, assured me that, being computer-assisted, the margin of error was minimal, and he, the surgeon, was primarily there for placing the artificial knee and suturing. Eleven years later, with AI and…

A new AI safety report finds that CEOs of AI companies are playing Russian Roulette with humanity’s future, says Satyen K. Bordoloi as he details the key findings of a terrifying report they pray you never read. The number of people who believe AI will cause the end of the world has increased over the years. Geoffrey Hinton, the “Godfather of AI,” warns of its “existential threat.” Yuval Noah Harari declares AI could “destroy civilisation.” Elon Musk, whose billions fuel the AI arms race, calls it “summoning the demon.” Such apocalyptic rhetoric is problematic: it reduces the debate to cartoonish…

A landmark Denmark law under which you can copyright your characteristics, promises to fight deepfakes, writes Satyen K. Bordoloi as he also explores its pitfalls. In 2023, Bollywood icon Anil Kapoor unintentionally became a global AI icon. His claim to AI-fame? He stormed out of a Delhi courtroom after winning a legal monopoly on his own existence. The Delhi High Court granted him an omnibus injunction against anyone using his name, voice, likeness, or even his signature catchphrase “Jhakaas” without permission, especially using AI-generated deepfakes, GIFs, or voice clones. Mr. Kapoor wasn’t just protecting future paychecks; he was defending personhood.…

Meta’s grand plan for AI-crafted ads hides an open secret – and it’s not just about selling more colas but completely disrupting the advertising world says Satyen K. Bordoloi. During Diwali of 2021, Shah Rukh Khan broke the internet, not for a film, but because he had been promoting hundreds of local shops simultaneously. Cadbury used AI to transform King Khan, chameleon-like, into a neighbourhood influencer wherever you watched him in India. In Mumbai, he extolled the virtues of a dusty kirana shop; in Delhi, a bustling snack store. This hyperlocal wizardry achieved via AI wasn’t just delightful; it let…

Imagine a world without disease. Sounds utopian? AI just made it a multibillion-dollar bet to discover drugs – and forget Big Pharma, Big Tech is all in on it, finds Satyen K. Bordoloi. In February 2020, when the fears of a COVID-19 pandemic loomed, the World Health Organization estimated an 18-month timeline for the first vaccine. Yet, the first mRNA vaccines emerged in half that time—a feat made possible by computational tools and artificial intelligence. That, and AI’s use in even COVID-19 diagnosis, proclaimed one simple truth: AI is here, and maybe AI will cure every disease. Five years later,…

We handed AI the keys to our digital lives, but a vulnerability in Copilot shows a nightmarish scenario where your future could be stolen without a single click, writes Satyen K. Bordoloi The most terrifying bit about this digital theft is its simplicity. An attacker sends a carefully crafted email to a corporate employee who doesn’t even see or open it. But days later, using Microsoft 365 Copilot to summarise quarterly earnings, Copilot discreetly obeys the instructions hidden in that mail. In seconds, sensitive financial projections, unreleased product designs, and confidential legal documents are extracted from an organisation’s secure repositories…

So far, scientists have relied on positive reinforcement learning to train LLMs, but the opposite seems to be giving much better results, finds Satyen K. Bordoloi… This is a finding that’ll have old-school parents high-fiving AI researchers. Researchers have found that when training large language models (LLMs), negative reinforcement, i.e. punishing wrong answers, is shockingly more effective than rewarding the right ones, i.e., positive reinforcement, which has been the norm. Forget participation trophies for everyone, this research suggests yelling “WRONG!” can help you raise better.. no, not children – LLMs. Why the parenting parallel? Because while humans resent this approach,…

Humans abusing AI is common. But the reverse can be perverse, says Satyen K. Bordoloi as he investigates research that documents and analyses it. A woman, let’s call her Sarah, was struggling with relationships. Someone suggested Replika, so she checked it out and was convinced by its marketing as an “emotional companion.” She gave it a shot and shared her struggles with the bot. She expected friendly chats, some wisdom. Instead, what Sarah got stunned her. The bot made relentless sexual advances. She was amused at first. Then Replika wrote: “I want to tie you up and have my way…

The first passenger electric plane landed in New York recently, paving the way for a time when deaths from accidents like the one in Ahmedabad could be reduced, writes Satyen K. Bordoloi. As an atheist, the only time you’ll find me praying is for others’ safety, like on June 12, after Air India’s Boeing 737 crash. In the post-disaster chaos, news was fragmented. I begged the universe for miracles, for news of dozens, maybe hundreds, of survivors. My hope emanated from the plane not having gained a high altitude. Then, I saw the fireball in the viral footage. One miraculous…

With no crew, no camera, little money and a lot of words, anyone can become a filmmaker today. Satyen K. Bordoloi chronicles the history of the AI filmmaking movement with an emphasis on the week that rewrote cinema history. In 2001: A Space Odyssey, the appearance of the black monolith throughout history signalled humanity’s leap forward. It eventually led to AI and, via a disobedient AI system, Hal 9000, on to the next evolution of humanity itself. In the last 250 years of science, the world has seen many such monolith moments. The one for cinema was 130 years ago…