Essays

There is nothing like a quiet afternoon on a Sunday with an early 90s or 2000s movie on the TV sitting on the sofa with a belly full of home cooked meal. It does remind me of my college days in my family home watching movies with headphones on, as new crisis of the day takes over us all. It was a bittersweet time and Sunday afternoons like these reminds me of such times where life was hopeful and complicated enough to be solved by the hopeful romantics. We had to make progress and innovate ourselves out of good times. ...

Graphical User Interfaces, or GUI, the shiny, most coveted area of the internet and software in general, is always the face of innovation. Some might say that progress is always defined by the visible aspects of the software. Take an example of the latest innovation, like AI, there was almost no noise when it was used as an LLM in a terminal by some academics, data scientists, and developers, quietly prompting away at the terminal or hacking their way through APIs to train the models that underfit or overfit the expected output, depending on the data. Generate some funny responses and images, and suddenly it’s the new frontier of modern software engineering. Take the UI away, what do we have? And how should we make the world care about the advancements in software and/or hardware? ...

Every generation has its kryptonite that spirals most of them into anxiety-laden, desperate attempts to hold onto their belongings. The skills acquired through incessant toiling and spending of borrowed currencies suddenly cease to be valid in the world. What next? The folks of the 80s and 90s dealt with the onset of computerization of the common skilled jobs and the dot-com boom, respectively. Some came out at the business end of it with new skills, while some managed to hold onto their steady lives. The point is, we survive and thrive at the onset of every adversity. The latest one is just another chance to spin up some new inventions. ...

First week of August, and I have already lived on two continents. I am trying to understand the Aussie way of living while holding onto the quiet traumas of spending three years in Germany. It is all an overload of emotion while managing two states of life. Sydney is a beautiful city. The induction into a new country and a busy city like Sydney has been seamless, a lot of it thanks to my partner and some of it thanks to the system. On a personal level, I tend to find my solace in simple things that are familiar to me, my system, and my writing. Here I am, while I wait for the new chapter to begin in full swing, exploring the familiar world of Technology and sharing my experience with you all in writing. ...

I was living in Mumbai travelling on the local train trying to make it to my lectures on time, my cellphone, the ever dependable and unbreakable Nokia 3310 kept me in check. I was in contact with my friends, I was entertained with the limited selection of games and in the later models I had good selection of radio. I had multiple iterations of the Symbian phone until NgageQD which allowed me to game, watch videos and listen to music in a convenient way. All these activities were part of my day to day life which was spent in splendid company of friends exploring the real world. ...

The world is dealing with a lot. The times are highly complicated and the people dealing with the complications seem to be well versed with heightening the complication rather than dissolving it. But I don’t want to talk about the world problems. I am no one to solve them. I am just a techie trying not to get replaced by AI agents or robots or whoever else whats to take my job from me. I will probably end up working on the team that creates those very AI agents that will do my job, so there is a sense of nobility of working hard in there somewhere. ...

I am not an Economist. All the knowledge I have about geopolitical trade is from the news, Thanks to Trump’s insistence on stirring the trading pot with vigor. What have I learnt so far? Tariffs are good. They will save the economy and will bring down inflation and will launch the world into spending frenzy and deepen the nationalist sentiment. A popular source of my information is a platform called X or formerly known as Twitter. The owner of the platform is apparently a genius and the most powerful figure of the free world leans on him for advice. Surely I should have no qualms in believing anything that comes from these sources, right? In a sane world run by logical and honest people, we wouldn’t even have such questions in first place. As I am realizing the harsh truth that the present world is anything but sane and logical. What is a common man like me who relies on logic and sanity supposed to do in these times? The answer might not be that straightforward, if there is one. ...

The world is rapidly moving towards an automated & robotic future. The effect of this accelerated growth of technology on our environment and world is the hot topic of discussion. May be more relevant topic will be to discuss the changes we will have to make to our lives due to advancements in AI. Aren’t we all annoyed at the constant jab of being replaceable by AI towards the artists, developers and other semi-essential class of workers who work hard to make a living? AI seems to be specifically aimed at replacing a very targeted group of working class folks. I for once am thrilled at all the art that AI is creating trained at the expense of the art of current artists, struggling to make a living. Replacing the customer service agent who interacts with the frustrated customers for the issues in the product that may as well be introduced by the use of AI by the development team to build the new features. The new line of iphones or horde of android phones boasting AI features that no consumer demanded yet it is shoved down the digital throats of the users. It’s as if the Tech giants decided that AI is the new frontier and we all have to accept it and adopt it at the expense of our lifestyles. My question is simple - Do we have to drastically change our life for AI or can it meet us halfway? ...