Author: Uma Iyer

“Artistic liberties leveraging original art will always be controversial and fairness and ethics will remain questionable”, says Uma. Yesterday, I heard the Sonu Nigam song ‘Har ghadi badal rahi hai roop zindagi’. With a click of a button the song was overlaid by Arijit Singh’s voice. Only difference, Arijit Singh never sang it! Later, it was easily overlaid by Michael Jackson’s voice. The song itself is reflective of today’s life, Life changes by the second. And how life has changed! Anyone can replace any song traditionally sung in anyone’s voice, without actually having a different singer singing it, all this…

What the assistants can help with is to reduce the chore/drudgery and give more time for meaningful work and engagement, says Uma. When I started my career in 2000, to get an appointment with my boss I needed to go via a personal assistant. They synced up calendars, understood the boss’s preferences and set up meetings seamlessly, took notes, and generated summaries. In 2020, executive assistants were slowly getting replaced as meeting calendars were semi-automated and most IT companies tried to reduce cost centers. Assistants have now gone digital, but can they be the same empathetic people that once understood…

AI is becoming increasingly sophisticated, and it is becoming more difficult to tell the difference between human/AI generated content, says Uma Iyer. With all the conversations about AI, it is natural to wonder if anything we see on the internet is AI generated or AI powered. Is the above statement AI generated? Yes, it is! Can I use a bot to write this article completely? Turns out I can. Few questions and the entire article can be typed up by a bot! Image Credit: Cottonbro Studio from Pexels Key AI Statistics 1. The global AI market value is expected to…

Awide variety of industries utilize blockchain technology to boost their bottom line, but it still seems to have avoided the ‘Tulip mania’, Uma explains. In the 17th century the price of tulip bulbs skyrocketed. As the price of tulip bulbs increased, more and more people bought them, hoping to make a profit. However, the price of tulip bulbs eventually collapsed, and many people lost a lot of money. This had a significant impact on the Dutch economy, as many people had invested heavily in tulip bulbs. The period was called Tulip Mania. Every generation has its own craze. Cryptocurrencies and…

AI, currently, does give indication that it is taking more than it gives from our time, thought, data, privacy and more, says Uma. Artificial Intelligence is the biggest discussion and seller in anyone’s resume today. Every organisation advertising for new roles is looking for individuals who have the magic words,’Automation’ or ‘Machine Learning’ or ‘Deep learning’, in their CVs. All organisations have their front page mentioning the use of machine learning and AI enhancing their product and service catalogue. But truly what does it all mean and what is it going to cost us? Let’s explore. Grammarly: Free Writing AI…

Will Emails ever be replaced by something else more ground breaking, wonders Uma. Emails replaced the standard ‘snail-mail’ and ‘post office’, however, 40 years on since its inception, has much changed? Let’s look back on the changing face of human connection and communication. Imagine the year 1990, my grand father used to visit the local post office and buy blue inland letters, stamps of various denominations, and yellow postcards to replenish the stock to avoid emergencies. When people in our family got married, the standard practice was to send the wedding invites by post along with a personal yellow card…

It is assumed that 1.4 billion people are using chatbots, with top 5- countries being the United States and India. Interactive Voice Responses (IVR) was the key term in early 2000’s where back offices had business process outsourcing units (BPO’s) mushrooming in developing nations. The key was to learn and neutralize accents (American and British), to support various companies. Scores of hours and metrics used to go in calculating wait time of customers, call resolution times and many other aspects. I remember, when I joined my first job where I miserably failed in rolling my R’s! Cut to 2023, I…

I am not famous enough (yet!) to interview Sundar Pitchai, so I thought why not interview Google’s latest addition to docs! I am not famous enough (yet!) to interview Sundar Pitchai, so I thought I can take another route by interviewing Google’s latest addition to docs, one of my most used tools! Prelude I use Google Docs to write my articles. I suddenly got a prompt asking me if I wanted to use labs. I nonchalantly said, “yes”. Turns out it can write this article for me. So I am going to experiment writing this article using the labs tool……

Not only does AI help find a partner, sometimes applications themselves become the partner, the potential is limitless, says Uma. Sima Aunty is the guru of match making and the show Matchmaking in Netflix is one of the most watched shows. What started as a basic documentary has been stretched to three seasons and a brand new designer avatar. However, Sima aunty has a catch, she does not appreciate flings and dating. She prefers ‘serious’ relationships which ultimately culminate in marriage. For the unversed, Indian Matchmaking, the hit eight-episode long Netflix docuseries, has Mumbai-based Matchmaker Sima Taparia becoming a social…

Uma Iyer traces the developments of the stock market, and explores the role of and future potential for technology in share trading. Back in the day, the share market used to be depicted by a big bull outside Wall Street in New York, busy shouting at individuals buying and selling stocks. High voltage voices echoed through NASDAQ and other high trading places. The bell used to be rung to start a trading day and stop the trading day! Brokers and traders made money speculating by reading through scores of papers and annual reports, predicting the future of a stock or…