Monthly Archives: March 2016
If AI is among us, would we know?
Our machines could become self-aware without our knowing it. We need a better way to define and test for consciousness. … an actual AI might be so alien that it would not see us at all. What we regard as … Continue reading
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Tagged artificial intelligence, cognisance, complexity, consciousness creep, emergence
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Inventors of public-key cryptography win 2016 Turing Award
Cryptography pioneers receive ACM A.M. Turing award In “New Directions in Cryptography,” Diffie and Hellman presented an algorithm that showed that asymmetric or public-key cryptography was possible. In Diffie and Hellman’s invention, a public key, which is not secret and … Continue reading
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Tagged Martin Hellman, prime numbers, public-key cryptography, RSA algorithm, Whitfield Diffie
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Getting a haircut
How I know I’ve moved and settled into a new place is if I get a haircut in that place. A haircut, to me, is a form of acceptance, of allowing that pithy activity to take precedence over bigger problems … Continue reading
The bad, avoidable and useless forms of journalism
Bad journalism: A Hindustan Times report on March 2 claims a high-schooler from West Bengal won a “prestigious” scholarship sponsored by NASA to study at Oxford University, having been selected on the back of a theory she had developed on … Continue reading
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Tagged archiving, fact-checking, hoaxes, journalism, NASA
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The Black Hole Theory – baloney?
An updated version of this article was published in The Wire, March 3, 2016. I smell bullshit. Ref: The Times of India report. High-school girl from West Bengal. Claims she bumped into NASA scientists on random social media groups – … Continue reading
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Tagged blackholes, NASA Goddard Institute of Space Studies, Rohit Gunturu, Sataparna Mukherjee
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