Out of all the failed committees in the history of committee-formation, the Delhi Pollution Control Committee deserves a special medal for the spectacularness of its failure.

Soon to be one of Delhi's hottest cultural attractions. The replica of the gateway (torana) from Sanchi indicates that this building is about to take on the role of a stupa -- i.e., a burial mound and shrine to venerate the mortal remains of a saintly person. Here, that will be the Buddha himself.

After a detailed discussion on the Turing test and Chinese room papers, I asked my grad-level CogSci class whom they tended to agree with more, Turing or Searle. A clear majority, some 3/4ths or 4/5ths, said Searle. And these are young, well-informed folks who regularly use ChatGPT et al.!

Very interesting analogy about the nature of mathematical ideas and cognition. From @davidbessis.bsky.social's recent book, 'Mathematica'.

The Site Museum at Phanigiri (Suryapet distt., Telangana) opened earlier this year. Its collection of limestone sculpture and inscriptions from the 2nd—4th century hilltop Buddhist stupa/monastery at this site is just mind blowing, both in its quality and its state of preservation.

There's probably nothing about my old Oxford college I miss more than this. The combined power of the music, the setting, the sense of community, and the festive spirit was just sublime...

A striking instance of the utter neglect of Buddhist history and archaeology in India: artifacts from one of the most important recent finds of a major Buddhist monastery, at Phanigiri in Telangana, are tucked away in an obscure case in the Telangana State Museum which almost no one visits.

I’m confidently leaving all my workload until January as if that’s months away rather than… *checks calendar*… in a week and a half 🥲

open letter calling for a 6-month pause on metaphors for AI

Sunset over the Vasai Creek, crossing from the island to the mainland. Highlight of an evening train out of Mumbai…

Steel girders at Bombay Central built by Dorman Long & Co. of Middlesbrough, England – the same steelmaker which built the famous Sydney Harbour Bridge!

I expected the Mathura Museum to be good; but it hugely exceeded my expectations. Just a spectacular collection of ancient (especially Buddhist) sculpture. What an incredible hub of Buddhism Mathura must have been in the Kushan era…

There was a discussion on AI with experts at my uni. The discussion already began inauspiciously, "AI is a tool, we no longer use horse and cart. We use cars. Cars have downsides, but we can't do without them. It'll be the same with AI."
I think cars are a disaster for humanity--on so many levels

A short thread on some of the ways in which LLMs are being tested and benchmarked. It's been quite striking (and depressing) to see how the exam-centric nature of the human education and assessment systems we've created has increasingly crept into the AI world.

Hasn't received a lot of attention in the media, but looks like there's a stunning new Buddhist archaeological site near Hyderabad which has recently opened up to visitors. It's gone right to the top of my bucket list...

Have finally coded a Small Language model. Responds to any input with “wow, that’s a lot of words” and then shuts down

Stephen Wolfram thinks we need philosophers working on big questions around #AI:

“The question is what do you think about, and that’s a different kind of question, and it’s a question that’s found more in traditional #philosophy than it is in the traditional #STEM.”

techcrunch.com/2024/08/25/s...

Never mind the laws of Newton or Maxwell. In modern academia, only one law rules the roost: Goodhart's.