Orientation for Masters in Comp Sc and Masters in Statistics by Jibrael Jos

Leadership
Data Science
Mayuri, Rupal, Alex, Thejus, Ashrita, Reshma
Akhilandeshwari, Angshuman, Karunya (and many more)
MCA
Karen, Udit, Rohan, Anwesha, Lynford
MSc Comp Sc
Paridhi, Dev, Nayanika, Dhirendra, Mansi, Mansoor
MSc Statistics
Ronit,Ruchika,Tanya,Garima,Jayashree (and many more)

Talent/Enthusiasm
MSc Data Science
Yosha, Gopika, Roshini, Chaitra, Viola, Losel, Abhijith, Badri, Sandra, Andrea
MSc Statistics
Garima, Bhagya, Utkarsh, Prakhar
MCA
Adriel, Ashly, Ishita
MSc Comp Sc
Laxmy, Swarnava, Vaishnavi, Yashaswani, Bishal, Paridhi,Shravya

Change they would like to bring

 Areas to Excel

Artwork

Class Goals

Collages

Orientation for MA International Studies by Jibrael Jos

Those who showed Leadership
Hanspreet, Granth, Vibha, Vineet, Sanzwita
Gaurang, Aman, Prasanna, Wonchi, Jagritee

1. What they would like to slay

 2. Areas to Excel

 3 Artwork / Self Goals

4 Collages

4. Class Goals

From Slave to Friend - Brian Thomas

He was kind to me. Or so my sensors told me.
Master George was 13 years old, in a wheelchair from the day he entered school. And I? A personal assistant - State of the art Humanoid existing purely for George. I was to be his personal butler, his assistant that did anything asked of me, to take care of him as he ate, bathed, slept and even pooped. Yet the only task Master George assigned was “will you be my friend?”.

I never experienced strangeness before. This was new. It seemed to have developed in my adoptory disk after my interactions with Master George. I was programmed to be the most efficient slave yet I was treated as almost a brother. Am I allowed this? I itched to ask to fill in the gap of knowledge yet my data confirmed I did not benefit from knowing.

I’ve worked for 5 masters before but he was a first with the data he imbibed in me. George taught me games my systems already recognized. But my decision circuits seem to lean to allow for errors in my judgements as I played with him. George seemed to enjoy this. To be overjoyed for flaws in my moves for a task. George seemed to like the idea of beating me to his games. Yet he frowned when he won any more than 3 times in a row. I tried understanding his emotions yet it was confusing. He liked to win yet he hoped for me to beat him. My algorithms keep updating when I notice these quirks of his.

George was abnormal in the fact that he did not like the truth 100% of the time. He personally dialed my settings to 85%. George smiled when I spoke the truth but he frowned at times when I did the same at a different time. He tried explaining it to me yet my circuits could not process it.
“White lies” he said. “Sometimes it isn’t just the objective truth people want to hear”.

I used to visualize the world with the words and experiences my masters shared with me. But George was different. He took me to the places he went and shared his world with me next to him. At times my cranium overheated with sensory overload but George would Fan me with his hands to help. It was strange. My systems advised me to go indoors to cool. But my circuits moved my limbs to absorb all that I saw with him anyways.

“Smile,” he said. “It’ll really make you feel like the king of the world”. I did not understand him. My purpose was to serve yet George wanted me to be free like him. He treated me as a fellow human even through my computational errors and hangtimes. He would let me join him at the dinner table, Steak and Mash Potatoes for him and AAA batteries for me. I have learnt to love AAA batteries.

Yet as I move to the resting dock as Geoge tucks himself to bed, my systems struggle to rest, it continues to simulate scenarios in my Disks, to create experiences to maximise his happiness. My systems overwritten from slave to friend.

Waterproof by Reshma Ramakrishnan

The sky was a dark blue, with bright stars like splashes of white, shimmering here and there. They would soon fade, engulfed by the grey clouds coming from the west, a downpour was to be expected. The wind makes the trees around me sigh, and I sigh with them. I mull over today’s events, overthinking and overthinking. The humiliation I faced at school, the hours I spent staring at the shoes inside La boutique followed by the harsh but quick realization of my empty pocket, the forlorn glance at Nathan while he crossed the road, completely lost in the world of music inside his earphones and last but not the least, the fight. The most troublesome thought of them all. 

“I should have said sorry.” I mumbled into the night. An apology meant for someone who should have been there to hear it but isn’t. 

“You should have.” Dot. She’s here. 

“Go away, please,” I say half-heartedly. I turned to look at her, it wasn’t that difficult to spot her bright figure against the darkness of the sky. The pink dress which I made her wear was so translucent that her Command screen was showing through. It said, “Friend located”.

“Can I sit?”

“No.” She made a whirring noise that sounded too human to be made by a robot and sat beside me, looking like a brightly lit Ferris wheel. 

“Can you tone it down a little, I’m trying to repent here,” I said, holding my fingers to my temple.

“The health monitor stays normal though,” she said, checking her wrist. I look away, embarrassed. 

“How are you a machine, when you catch my lies faster than my own mother?”

She looks up at the sky. The screen on her chest blinked, and a picture of the sky appeared on the screen. 

“Sometimes I forget that I am one. Sometimes, just sometimes, you have to be what you want to be instead of what others want you to be,”

“Hmm, wise words coming from a machine,” I said, instantly regretting it. 

“Look I am sorry I -” I started. 

“Oh look. The clouds are here. I detect a decrease in the temperature. There is going to be rain. It would be wise to go back home, friend.” 

I looked up, and true enough, the clouds had covered the stars  completely and the trees were shaking and making noise. I stand, smoothening the creases on my skirt. Dot looks around at the trees and the screen blinks again. 

“So intelligent yet so dumb,” I observe, shaking my head, a smile reaching my lips. I hold out my hand.

“Let’s go home before you decide to malfunction, in the middle of the road in the rain,”

Dot takes my hand, and propels herself up until she is level with my shoulders. 

“You forget, I am waterproof, friend.”

“Right. Whatever you say,” I pause. “..pal.”

We didn't get drenched that day. But Dot’s screen did blink another time. 

Never meant to feel by Gauri Ashish

            It was the year of 2020 and a dark cloud had surrounded the entire world. The pandemic had taken over the world and the life as humans knew, had changed forever. Mental health was at its lowest and the world saw a surge in the cases of domestic abuse. The government, in order to keep track of the rising cases, had provided every house with a personal robot.

             I was supposed to be just a machine. Merely, a compilation of metal and human fed coding programs. I was never meant to “feel” or even know what the word meant.
When I first arrived at the human’s house, I was prepared to stick to the instructions provided to me by the government but just then I became aware of the kind of horrors one human has the capability of inflicting on another.

            It was a small family, consisting of a young couple. The man of the house was tall and built, with a bearded face and constant anger in his eyes. The wife was a meek lady, with a petite figure and a sad smile. The lady too had a kind of anger in her eyes, but she managed to hide it well, perhaps to avoid further instigating her abuser. I stayed with the family for about 2 weeks. They had a regular routine, the wife would wake up early in the morning and finish all the chores of the house, all by herself. When the man would wake up, he would constantly order her around, further wearing her out. He would begin drinking in the morning and a couple of hours later the verbal abuse would begin. Words like “whore” and “bitch” were casually thrown around and my system would tell me that these words were sexist slurs. I didn’t understand much of what was going on, this information wasn’t fed into my system.

            The physical abuse came much later, at about 8pm. It would begin slow, with just a slight push and loud screaming and then finally the man would raise his hand and leave the wife, lying on the floor with tears in her eyes, with a blueish purple imprint on her cheeks and several bruises all over her body. Like I said earlier, I was never meant to “feel” or even know what the word meant and even though I couldn’t put a name to this emotion but whatever it was, it “felt” wrong.

             The robot witnessed the violence, heard the degrading insults, yet the robot struggled to feel; to feel empathetic, to feel anger and most of all, to feel the sheer fear that many humans have to live with every day.

Blame Prometheus by Shreya K

One thing I remember starkly from my childhood is grumbling to myself as I helped with chores, cursing my mom under my breath and swearing that one day, I wouldn’t have to do what she said. I’d have my own place, my own time, and I wouldn’t have to do anything unless I deemed it absolutely necessary. Never did I consider that there might be a day when I truly didn’t have to do anything at all.

Since the beginning of time, human beings have worked to survive, worked to make our lives easier. We discovered fire, we cooked meat; we made stone tools, then we built brick houses, cars, computers, washing machines and refrigerators, all designed to help us live our lives more efficiently. At what point do we draw the line before machines start living for us? We draw closer to that destination with every new discovery, but I still want that vacuum cleaner that also works as a mop. I would gain an entire hour in my day to waste. At what point does greed lead to frustration and anger?

There’s this kite metaphor I love. Something along the lines of a kite’s freedom depending on it not being as free as it thinks it is. When you cut the string of a kite – as when you remove all burdens and responsibilities from the shoulders of a human being – it soars up with the wind for a brief period of time before it spirals and floats down to the ground, limp and lifeless.

What would you do if your strings were cut? Wouldn’t you be ecstatic, thrilled, elated? If resources were abundant, and the concept of money was obsolete? If you could go anywhere you wanted to go, see everything, do anything – does the thought of this excite you as much as it excites me? Explore the deepest wilderness, scale the highest peaks, sip tea and eat croissants at a dainty Parisian café…whatever rocks your boat. The real question is… how long would your exhilaration last? Is a vacation really a vacation if you don’t have a job?

In a world where you have no responsibilities and no obligation to work, you would soar. We all would. But how long would it take for our monkey-brains to descend into a Tartarus-pit of boredom? We’ve long walked the line between Chaos and Order. Work helps us balance on that very tightrope, keeping us on our feet. I can only hope that for the duration of my time on Earth, I continue to have a purpose. After that, artificial intelligence can take over the world and turn everyone into those bloated, brainless caricatures on Wall-E, it doesn’t matter.

As Dan Brown said in one of his books (I can’t differentiate, they all seem to blend into one giant motherbook of science-fiction vs religion), ‘May our philosophies keep pace with our technologies, and may our compassion keep pace with our powers.’

City of Rylai by Rivu Dasgupta

It has been 15 years since the great uprising. People are happy in this city, an emotion almost forgotten in the years of war preceding the uprising. No one dies fighting for food or water anymore. It's peaceful in the city. The great ruler is the most benevolent of them all, the one who showed mercy to all these people and allowed them in the city of Rylai. The city provides what people want for and thus people stay in the city. What is the alternative? Live out in the vast stretches of barren land outside? 

Radek went on his usual walk in the evening, there wasn't much to do in the city of Rylai after all. He saw Spencer as usual on his bench reading the book he always read. He always considered spencer to be quite unusual. But so was everyone else in the city of Rylai.

The thoughts of the past often clouded the mind of Radek, the days before the great uprising were long,gruesome and unforgiving in his memory. It was hard for the people before the uprising. Food was scarce, water was limited and mouths to feed were a few too many. He wanted to rid himself of these thoughts once and for all. That was decades ago, when people died of hunger and diseases, fights over a bottle of water were common, surviving was what mattered and humans were more animals than sentient beings.

The city was the most lively and dull place at the same time. No one had to work for anything. Everything was given to everyone. Those vans were the only connection the people had with the bureaucracy. Vans would be an understatement, they were big trucks to be precise, laden with all sorts of goods and valuables. Each week one would come in front of your house and deliver all that you could need for the coming week. Where they got all the food no one knew. Farming was almost not possible before the uprising and most sources of freshwater were nonexistent. But something had changed with the coming of the new age. Food was suddenly available for all and so was everything else. But it all came at a price, a deeply held secret only few knew. It was the most sacred of things to the ruler and the city, the fundamental on which this utopia was built, without which the conditions would return back to what it was before the uprising.

Radek kept on walking, there was not much to do in the city after all. Sleep was crucial to the citizens with cases of people sleeping for days on end. What else are you supposed to do when all your days are the repetition of the same mundane tasks. Boredom was an issue but not a price people wouldn't pay to live in this great city. But Radek wasn't one of those people. He lived his life like his mother taught him before the uprising, sleeping only at night and always protecting and taking care of his little sister. He was only six years old when the uprising happened, the memory clear as day to him. The only person he cared for other than his sister, died that day, but her face was one thing he could never forget. All the lessons she had taught little radek still fresh in his mind came back from time to time as if she were speaking them herself. Radek often tried talking to the people of the city, but somehow they all seemed too happy all the time as if they had forgotten about it all. The rumors were always what he thought about. He had to avoid the rumors if he had to protect his sister but he never could. Preston had always told him that they were what everyone thought of them to be, just rumors but Radek could never believe it.

He finally came upon it, his humble abode which he shared with his sister. Every family got one house in the city. There were too many of them anyway and too few people to live in them. The destruction which followed the uprising took away most people in the world, at least that's what they all said. Leaving the city was always a very exciting proposition for Radek, seeing what was left of the rest of the world but he knew he never could. Once you enter the city you never leave, everyone knows that.

This was the land of dreams for some people, a place where there was no economy, everything was ripe for the taking and suffering was nowhere to be seen. This was the city of Rylai, home to the survivors of the destruction. Everyone was happy and no one was sad because there wasn't anything to be sad about. You want a toy kid? You got it right here. You want to eat candy? Take as much as you like. You want a new house? Plenty of them in the city. All you had to do to fulfill your dreams was enter the city. But always remember, once you enter the city, you never leave.