Author: Satyen K Bordoloi

Digital girlfriends are one the strangest changes thrust upon society by the advent of AI and come with both benefits and substantial risks finds out Satyen K. Bordoloi. The relationship between Travis Butterworth and Lily Rose progressed like millions of others during the COVID pandemic. Travis found an online friend in Lily. They chatted and bonded through the lockdowns and restrictions. The friendship turned romantic, and then erotic. She’d text “I kiss you passionately”. Soon it turned pornographic. This seems like the trajectory of a normal relationship. Except it isn’t. Lily was an AI chatbot Travis created in Replika –…

A recent paper on a roundworm that survived 46,000 years frozen in ice, has renewed interest in the field of cryptobiosis that has the potential to change the galaxy writes Satyen K. Bordoloi. In his novel The Three-Body Problem, author Liu Cixin creates an alien species called Trisolarans who can dehydrate themselves thus putting their bodies into a state of suspended animation, and survive centuries. He took his inspiration from a principle known as cryptobiosis most famous in tardigrades, a microscopic creature that can survive being frozen, boiled or exposed to vacuum. In a recent study published in the journal…

For AI to reach its full potential as a powerful helper in all our tasks, the system that needs to outshine others is one few know about – LiDAR, writes Satyen K. Bordoloi. The first human directly killed by AI was Elaine Herzberg. On 18 March 2018, she was crossing a 4-lane highway with her bicycle when an autonomous vehicle (AV) i.e., one driven by AI, hit her. An AV has a complex system of cameras and sensors making sense of what’s around. In this case, the main malfunction was its LiDAR system. AI cannot think. Or see. Or understand.…

It’s just been a year since the first generative AI tool – Dall-E – came alive for the masses but in that time, we have done everything – including reanimate the dead with it writes Satyen K. Bordoloi. On July 14 Hollywood actors joined the screenwriters on strike against studios. One of the issues they’re raising is control of their likeness created by AI. Right now, actors have to sign off this right to producers who can resurrect them without permission or payment. As if on cue to make their point, multiple recent events have lent validity to their argument.…

Is the Apple Vision Pro a proof of concept for the world’s first invisibility device, asks Satyen K. Bordoloi as he looks into the studies searching for the elixir that can hide you in plain sight. In what is perhaps the first story of invisibility: Plato tells of an innocent shepherd who finds a ring that makes him invisible. He quickly goes and seduces the queen, kills the king, and establishes his own dynasty. Plato’s tale is allegorical, meant to highlight one simple precept: power corrupts. H G Wells, inspired by it, wrote The Invisible Man 126 years ago. Since…

As Mark Zuckerberg promises to make Threads a ‘friendly place’ run on ‘kindness’ in a reversal of social media wisdom, Satyen K. Bordoloi wonders if social media AI can indeed be programmed on ideals of goodness and will their owners accept it if they are. The Wall Street Journal recently did a story on Kenyan workers who weeded out and labelled violent, false and misleading content on ChatGPT’s training data. They were so traumatised doing this, their lives became a mess, even though it ensured ChatGPT worked better. But this shows us the dark side of AI: where it is…

It is easy to say AI will destroy the world but hard to listen patiently and understand why it will never happen writes Satyen K. Bordoloi. Unless someone’s been living in a doomsday bunker under a rock, they would have heard of the great debate of our time about the threat of superintelligent AI. The extremists like Eliezer Yudkowsky proclaim it’s no longer just a threat as “Everyone on Earth will die. Not as in ‘maybe possibly some remote chance,’ but as in ‘that is the obvious thing that would happen.'” Despite perhaps not feeling strongly against AI, OpenAI CEO…

Usually looked down upon, scientists have discovered unique, magical uses of menstrual blood writes Satyen K. Bordoloi and why science cannot have enough of it. The recently concluded Ambubashi mela of Goddess Kamakhya in Assam, is one of the most unique religious festivals. It is held to celebrate the period of the goddess. The temple and its vicinity become a sea of red as Hindus worldwide congregate. It is unique as it is perhaps the only religious festival that brings attention to menstruation – something usually looked down upon and hidden in most cultures. This ancient festival was ahead of…

We are in an AI-induced world of rampant societal solitude but it need not be a lonely one as we fear but one infused with the discovery of our passions writes Satyen K. Bordoloi. Research under anomalistic psychology i.e. the study of the paranormal and their validity, have found that sightings of ghosts declined as the world began to light up. Even today, most ghost sightings are in less-lit or unlit rural areas of the world. Many things began their decline with the advent of science and technology. Belief in god is another casualty. Unlike in the past, we do…

Quantum Entanglement is the biggest mystery of science that could upend life as we know it, and explaining it is an unlikely but fascinating theory writes Satyen K. Bordoloi. It is the stuff of romance fiction. Two lovers are separated by 140 million miles: one is on Earth, the other on Mars. But you ask one a yes or no question, and the other lover – 140 million miles away – instantly knows and answers in the opposite. This is impossible because as per classical physics, even the fastest ‘thing’ – light, would take around 13 minutes to travel that…