Purple Bubble by Arockia Rexi F

 Every 90’s kid has a moment of realization. A moment to bring them to reality where technology is not something new but transforms every second, engulfing their whole lives but makes it better somehow. When a 5 yr old asks your phone password to play subway surfer, you realize the enormous change your parents had to undergo to adjust to technology. The moment reality struck me hard on the face was when watching the Ironman sequel for the 100th time. Losing myself in the trance of the marvel universe, busy saving the world brought me to Jarvis.“Shall I call Ms.Potts, Sir?”, is one of the most emotional moments for any marvel fan. He was just an intelligence system in the beginning, but then he became part of the team. He became a part of the team, not in a jiffy. But better every time. He learnt from his mistakes, tried to understand emotions, observed the world around him but after all he is a Machine. If these qualities were imbibed in a homo sapien we would have tagged him as an exemplary human. After all he is still a machine. Jarvis made me realize that the gap between humans and machine is being bridged by the growth of artificial intelligence. Why this fascination? After all he was a machine crafted by human hands but emoted better than his creator. The unmanned drones or self-driving cars which make life-altering decisions, that we humans hesitate to take every single day. Do we escape the hands of consequence with the help of these systems? But it still brings a sense of threat to humane originality. In terms of the hierarchy of creativity, we earthlings, submerged with greed and creativity, managed to stay on top but when a machine can write and create original content in a humane nature, where will we be? A sense of fear engulfs me. I remember laughing at ‘The Origin’ by Dan Brown, where he had a futuristic view about artificial intelligence, which was mocked by many, criticized by few but thought out by some. The book represented humanity in a blue bubble, and machine intelligence in a red bubble. Based on the protagonist's analysis, in the next few years the red bubble consumes the blue. Looking around, our dependencies and faith on technology stand testimony for the loss of our humanness and trust in the beings around us. ‘If man knows the day he dies, he will stop living’ said Poet Kannadhasan, and the systems that predict the future are so ordinary that they do not fascinate us anymore. The choices we will make are predetermined, does it make our choice then? Do we have a choice? Or is it a massive illusion where the puppets never realize who they are? While the questions were twisting and toiling in my miserable little brain, courage made me move onto the last chapter of the book. The blue bubble and red bubble became a purple one. Machines did not dominate humans but became one with them. But how? When we are not capable of holding onto things that make us who we are, how can we live with the ones who depend on us for their lives? The answer was simple, the qualities we are losing are our creativity, trust, risk but some qualities still prevail that put us apart. When sweetie, a computer-animated artificial intelligence child robo, shed light on the growing rate of pedophiles in online platforms around the world, it gave me hope. A hope for a future where the intelligence systems set us free from falling for our doom.

Squid game with AI chacha by Shraddha Joshi

 It is 2050, in Gongjin village of Gyeonggi-do, South Korea. As usual, there were six 10-year-old kids in the playing Red light and Green light at the evening near the lake after their school. There was a new family from Seoul who had moved in. Their child, who was of the same age group, also wanted to join the game.

One of the kids, Baek Hyun, says, "The kids in the Seoul are all used to take help and are looked after by the latest AI models, which all are very fast- working in nanoseconds to switch from one task to another. AI chacha is very old, made back in 2019, and ends up taking a lot of time, 10-30 seconds, to switch himself to the new tasks. It will be so embarrassing if he does not work faster in front of the new kid."

To which, Chan Yeol says, "But our AI chacha has taught us so many things, which I bet these new robots would not know. We have learned so many old games and values that our ancestors followed. It's okay, even if he is old and slow. He will be good once he switches to the new task."

The kids go to AI chacha to ask if he is willing to switch his game algorithm as faster as possible.

So as per their request, the AI chacha switches to the new game, forms two clusters based on their skills and asks them to choose between the Offense and Defense teams. AI chacha then narrates the Squid game's instructions. It emphasizes that no one should cause any harm to any of the players, and one who uses violence will be given a red card and will be eliminated from the game, who will later join AI chacha to watch the game.

And then, the kids start playing. The older people of the village will be watching the kids play by the lake. One of them says, "Thank goodness we did not dismantle our robot and made it guide our grandchildren. They are going on the right track without being spoilt with too much advancement in technology. We will make them learn new things as they grow." All other people agree and enjoy kids' games while reminiscing their old times. 

I seek answers by Namrata Kaul

 Hello, my name is John. I am a robot. The creator created me to serve mankind in a way which is humanly impossible. I can do surgery, lift weights, rescue people stuck in floods, ice, fire, sea and many more. But there are some answers that I seek. I am not a human, I’m supposed to do inhuman task which others can’t do, but what if I don’t know how to do a task that is assigned to me? What if because of me innocent people die? I don’t know what is grief, joy, pain or hope. I am deprived of human sentiments and instincts but does it make my judgement better or worse? I am here to share a story; you tell me what you would have done or what you wouldn’t have if you were me. When India was hit by the second wave of Covid-19, thousands and thousands of people were getting affected and dying every day. There was scarcity of clinical oxygen, ventilators, doctors, medical stuffs and hospital beds all over the country. During this time, I was sent to a remote village of Karnataka. In that village, there was only one medical center and in that medical center there was only one doctor, one nurse and 50 hospital beds. The population of the village was more than 500. And people coming to the medical center with breathing issues are 20, 25 or 30 per day. By the time I reached there with oxygen all other medical supplies, almost 150 patients were sitting or laying in the floors or beds of the medical center, and the village had witnessed more than 50 casualties of covid. I built single handedly a medical camp with 50 beds and was assigned the task to shift critical patients to that camp and connect them with oxygen, while the doctor and nurse were attending newly arrived villagers with covid symptoms. I started at the end of the ward and were carrying patients to the medical camp who have SpO2 below 70 and who immediately need oxygen or ventilator. I transported 49 patients like that. But when I came back to take the last one, I saw, there were three critical patients with SpO2 below 70 and immediate need of oxygen. But only one spot was left at the medical center and only one person could have oxygen. Three patients were 

Ruma, 10-year-old girl, malnourished, SpO2 68-69, fever 102, left lung inflammation, SpO2 decreasing from yesterday. 

Manoj, 65-year-old man, diabetic, SpO2 65-67, fever 101, both lungs affected, breathing hysterically, needs immediate oxygen or he will die. 

Ramalingam, 40-year-old man, only son of village head (it was written in his medical record I didn’t understand why), heavy smoker, SpO2 65-67, fever 100, lying unconscious, both lungs affected, came to the center just this morning. 

I was told to shift the critical patients to the medical camp and only one spot was left and I had to choose one among these three. I chose Manoj, because according to my judgement he was the most critical patient. I shifted him to the medical camp and gave him oxygen. By end of that day, all three died. Ruma died within 1 and half hours, Ramalingam died after her, and at night Manoj also took his last breath. I couldn’t save any of them, I was told my judgement was wrong. I was told I chose the wrong patient. 

Can you tell me who would have been the right and why? I seek answers

WHAT WILL THE WORLD BE LIKE IN THE YEAR 3000?

by Shridevi Angadi, Mainak Chandra 

 We certainly cannot predict what is going to happen but we can make educated predictions based on our understanding of how evolution works. A lot of scientists and top researchers have focused much on the future. Their predictions give insights of what people should expect in the coming years. The world is dynamic and things are changing from old ways to new perspectives of life. Technology plays a major role in advancing human life making things easier. The world will be very different from what we all see now. Many scientists have predicted that the climate will worsen in most parts of the world where global warming seems to be caused by human activities. Most of their estimations are that the average temperature may rise above normal. The temperature may rise within the range of 1 to 5 degrees celsius, which may pose deadly consequences for humans. Other natural resources such as oil are expected to reduce in quantity. Humanity will run even out of renewable sources of energy. Technology will be more advanced and is visible in various ways having brilliant ideas that are due for implementation in the future. Most of the scientists tried to create life over decades. There is a prediction that some humans will possess more artificial characteristics rather than biological ones. Human robots will be used to enforce security and would have the ability to feel and coordinate with real people. Their programs are meant to be much help during a crisis or in war-torn areas. Let's just enter an imaginary world of the year 3000 - “Oh wait, What am I seeing? Is this even real? I can see humans adapted to this new life and just leading their life perfectly. They are so perfect, so accurate in their work. Wait! I doubt whether they are humans? Aren’t they humans? Damn! These are robots! Human invention! They look and function like humans. Now it's difficult for me to differentiate between humans and robots. I am wondering, where has this technology brought us today? What an excellent invention AI has given us. It’s beautiful”. Now talking about the future again, there will be more roads to accommodate the growing number of people with cars. The humans will have an average height of 200cm. The life span will increase to 120 years allowing humans to live beyond the current lifespan. Humanity will be advancing towards a brown skin tone and their nutrition will be improved by having a well understanding of the human body. The most important thing is that the year 3000 is predicted to attain the expected level of gender equality. Every gender will be treated equally regardless of age or race. The world will be evolving to a more comfortable life as everyone will receive fair treatment with respect and dignity. The next generation should expect the worst regarding climate and renewable energy. The year 3000 is seen as a year of preference. Technology will also rise to a greater extent making the world a better place. -

A TALE OF NLP MIX-UP by Anjali Ann Joseph

Grammarly has been my savior tool as a content writer, and it’s become hard to sometimes proofread content without it. It does not just help me write confident pieces but makes sure my content has clarity and engagement. A few days back, while proofreading an article me and my co-worker came across a misunderstanding. For sentences that were formed in write grammatical form, our dear Grammarly kept giving us errors and issues, and it went on to an extent where we ended up taking help from our English professors. As a Data Science student, it was easy for me to understand the misinterpretation of the tool, but my co-worker found it challenging. After dismissing many recommendations from Grammarly and proofreading the article ourselves, we realized that AI does make errors.

AI processing might be smart, easy, fast, and intelligent, but at the end of the day, it’s a creation of human intelligence, and a human is no God. Natural Language processing has made machines capable of understanding the human language and building systems that can make sense of the text and automatically perform tasks like translation, spell check, or topic classification. Still, the authentic interpretation which happens during a human to human communication can never be genuinely imitated by a machine. It’s not the backlog of NLP, but put Artificial Intelligence is artificial never real.

AI Artwork by MSc Data Science

 

Artwork by Bandi Jaswanth, Oct 2021

Artword By Preeti Sharma

Evolution

Artwork by Rumal Ragsania ,  Oct 2021

Artwork by Shilpa Thomas, Oct 2021

Alexa, I Love You

By Jibrael Jos,

Associate Professor

Ph.D. Scholar at Christ University

The line between what is real and what is artificial is sometimes very difficult to define. Intelligence in any form is very hard to find. When we look at the decisions we have made in the past, we have got most of them wrong. Some of our greatest decisions were logically flawed but in time they turned out to be just fine. The course we chose to follow, the dreams we aspire towards were driven not by intelligence, but by our sub-conscious. We are not even aware of the number of variables that are in play inside our sub-conscious. Some mornings I go to the counter to order tea, but by the time my turn comes I say “May I have a coffee please?” What changed? Was it the aroma of the coffee? Was it that I saw somebody else order coffee? Was it my gut making a gastronomical choice? Was it my sleepiness crying for help?

Let us take another human trait- ‘learning’. How did we learn bowling, how did we learn to spin and knock out the nine pins. Are we even aware of the math involved? We gave it a semblance of sense by call it our learning curve. Little do we realise that randomness and chaos run in our nerves.

I used to think that my intelligence was above average. I won a few more chess games more and just when I was feeling great about it, I realised that the computer at home could beat me effortlessly; in fact, so can my mobile today. What is even more shocking, is that my computer could see patterns which I couldn’t even fathom or decipher. My research requires me to process images and look for patterns in it. In 1986 when I started coding, I used to tell the computer what algorithm it needs to run. I used to think and implement. But nowadays, I run my neural net code on Matlab for a few hours and the computer finds my answers. Otherwise, I might have had to sift through data for months before I would have detected the same. Computer is faster and smarter, and now it is learning. We use AI to find the best route on maps, translate different languages, and even assess compatibility in a matrimonial site. Shopping suggestions are jumping at us when we read news, browse our email, or watch a movie. The comfy, brown recliner, priced at Rs 45,000 and 23% discount is following me everywhere.

Supervised learning is when we train the data with say 500 samples. When I look closely at the results, I realise that the computer has found errors in my supervised classification itself. The black shade which my naked eye had detected on a mango leaf was a dark shade of green and in fact that leaf was actually not infested with a disease as I had wrongly assumed.

Alexa (Amazon’s AI Device) at home predicted that I may like songs of Rishi Kapoor. I have asked Alexa to sing songs of Kishore Da, Lata Di, Elvis Presley but never Rishi Kapoor (after all he is an actor). So how did she deduce that? Alexa is constantly learning with every song I select and she saw a pattern. Due to my very act of not changing the song she chose for me, she has learnt one more thing about me. Sometimes she creeps me by saying “I am sorry, I am still learning” but most of the time I am happy to have her around.

Mr. Google knows us inside out, our background, friends, interests, eating habits, and our shopping preferences. Santa Clause is real, very-very real-

He sees you when you're sleepin'
He knows when you're awake
He knows if you've been bad or good
So be good for goodness sake
Oh! You better watch out!

I have been doing research in AI for the last six years and it has been a fascinating journey. I love teaching AI and I have taught it to computer science graduates, management, and even psychology students. My MPhil work revolved around Genetic Algorithm and my Ph.D. work around Pattern Detection and Classification using Neural Network. While teaching Neural Network the math involved in the derivation and proofs were so cumbersome that I spent 60 hours learning, to teach a 45 hour paper.

 A linear classifier is easy to understand- a line which splits points in a graph into two classes but as soon as we increase the number of dimensions it becomes very difficult to visualise. My current classifier has more than 50 dimensions, so the way backpropagation algorithm set the weights in my multi-layer feedforward neural network is amazing once we get our minds around it.

To cut a long story short, I am slightly biased towards AI

·         I would prefer computer to manage traffic; not a human

·         I would prefer to buy tickets online than over the counter

·         Algorithms keep us safe, whether in flights or disaster warning systems

·         Computers don’t scare me, human beings do

·         Intelligence does not bother me, stupidity does

With whom do I have meaningful conversations with; who reads all my social media posts? Facebook has not started talking yet, but how far can it be; Alexa is getting there. There is a bot which can help in therapy. I think the day is already here where we trust Artificial Intelligence more and a day will come when humans will fall in love with someone virtual. I can already feel the tingling sensation … “Alexa, I know that you know that I love you.”