Human Beings Used to be Special For a long time, in many parts of the world, it was believed that the sun, the moon, and indeed the entire cosmos revolved around the earth. This was known as the Geocentric model of the universe. This appeared to be a perfectly reasonable…

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about how diversifying your investments widely isn’t just good for you, but it’s also good for the world. I really wish this idea was more widely known. What is even more interesting is that this principle is applicable in many other spheres of…

I am always on the lookout for silver linings in life. What I mean by a silver lining is: Don’t naively ignore the dark cloud, look at it honestly and carefully, take it seriously, yet still focus on the sliver of sunshine around it. …

It’s Valentine’s Day, so why not imagine a world filled with love and poetry and art? Every WhatsApp message, a haiku? Every email, a love letter? Every phone call, a song? Every wall, covered in art? Every room, filled with designer furniture? Every building, looking like it was designed by…

In my last article, I described how to develop possibly simplest, yet somewhat useful app using the OpenAI API. The app, named AIffirmations, allows the user to select a topic from a list of choices, consisting of “life” or “love” or “money” or “the world” in general, and displays an…

As I mentioned in my last post, I had focused most of my writing in 2022 on big picture issues in science and technology, particularly in AI. For 2023, I am going to experiment with more practical, down to earth issues, hopefully things that people might find useful right away. …

I started writing on Medium in late December 2021, almost exactly a year back. (As you might have guessed, it was one of my new year’s resolutions. 😊) Needless to say that it’s been a fun and rewarding ride! I have absolutely enjoyed every part of the entire process of…

The movie “2001: A Space Odyssey” has turned out to be prescient in many ways. One of its most memorable “characters” is a human-like AI named HAL that is not only intelligent but also has its own motivations and goals. In the movie, those motivations and goals come in conflict…

OpenAI’s recent release of ChatGPT has once again stirred up the Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) debate. But I think what we have here is something quite different and intriguing. — The highly acclaimed movie “Her” is a sci-fi romantic drama set in a future where the AI singularity is imminent. In it, the main character is a writer, played by Joaquin Phoenix. His job is to write love letters on behalf of people who aren’t as talented with words as…