blog@Yantrajaal

First we had computers, then we had the world wide web and now we are talking about IOT, the Internet of Things. Computers are now pervasive and have occupied every nook and corner of life. Artificial intelligence seems to be growing bigger, faster and smarter everyday. Science fiction writers have often spoken of machines taking over the world but is that pure fantasy or is it a matter of time before this fiction becomes synonymous with fact? In this article, we will explore the genesis of artificial intelligence, examine how fast these are mutating and morphing into more advanced levels and finally speculate on what this means in terms of employment and other key indices of human society. But first, let us see .. How machines learn When I was a member of the faculty at IIT Kharagpur, one of my senior colleagues had told me that we should not to teach students but instead, help them learn. Can this idea to extended to machines? Any spreadsheet user would know how to have a comput...

Followers of the Sanatan Dharma, or "Hindus", in general and those who believe in the philosophy of Advaita Vedanta, as propounded by Sankaracharya, see the world as illusion ("Maya") that hides an underlying unity of universal consciousness or Brahman. This concept has been explored in greater detail in The Road to pSingularity but one of the key ideas is that there exists a central consciousness and all individual sentient entities ( or people) are a part of this central consciousness. The linkage between the central ("Brahman") and the individual ("Atman") is something that gets lost because of the illusion of "Maya" and only the true adept, after significant effort, realises the existence of the link and in doing so, succeeds in uniting his individual Atman with the universal Brahman through the process of Yoga or union. This post is not about trying to establish the authenticity of this point of view. Instead we explore how t...