Author: Satyen K Bordoloi

Tesla talks potential, Boston Dynamics’s videos wow, but it is a Chinese company, Unitree, that just put a real, capable humanoid robot on sale for less than $6,000, finds Satyen K. Bordoloi as he heralds the age of accessible robotics. On January 1 this year, when I stated in a piece that robots would be available to buy on shelves this year, a friend shot back at what he called ‘my imagination’. He didn’t deny it would happen; he just believed it was years away, if not decades. He quoted Morgan Stanley numbers, which had estimated in 2024 that a…

The two most chaotic forces in modern science – artificial intelligence and quantum mechanics – may be humanity’s best hope for solving our greatest challenges, writes Satyen K. Bordoloi When physicists associated with LIGO – Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory in the US – gave AI a problem to solve, they weren’t expecting miracles. The goal was to redesign the world’s most sensitive gravitational wave detector to hear even fainter whispers from the cosmos. The AI’s first response was an asymmetrical mess with hundreds of components and a bizarre three-kilometre-long ring bolted between parts of the interferometer. However, the team, as…

It is not enough to bluster that our armed forces be AI-ready without a supply line of indigenous tech to fuel them, writes Satyen K. Bordoloi Operation Sindoor, as a retaliation against the Pahalgam terror attack, woke India up to the need for machine learning (ML) integration into our command and control, on-ground war, logistics and decision-making. The result has been an Indian army AI roadmap announced recently that envisions integration of battlefield innovations in Artificial Intelligence (AI), ML and Big Data across our operational theatres, logistics and decision making by 2026-27. This is a commendable move by the government.…

Forget big data sets and giant models; a new machine learning architecture aces logic puzzles on minuscule training and resources, threatening to change machine intelligence forever, finds Satyen K. Bordoloi For humans, many things are easy to learn. You don’t know how to thread a needle? Someone shows you: stiffen the thread with spit, rub it between fingers, squint your eyes and gently insert the thread into the eye of the needle. Within a minute, you’ve learnt it. But try to teach the same to an AI robot. The effort and energy required to learn is humongous, if it can…

Remember when browsers just opened websites? Today’s AI browsers taking over the world can not only book your flight, but also double up as a therapist, finds Satyen K. Bordoloi. On September 30, 1997, Microsoft released Internet Explorer 4 at a party in San Francisco. Some team members decided to prank rival Netscape. They planted a giant metal “e” logo – the Internet Explorer symbol – on the front lawn of Netscape’s headquarters. It was paired with a greeting card that read: “Best wishes, the IE team.” Netscape had the larger browser market share. So, their employees toppled the “e”,…

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,…