Dad and mom, 54th wedding anniversary..

Getting the new Lenovo Chromebook

I was on the lookout for a good high value laptop to help me in my daily chores. All my work is on Google cloud using Google apps like blogger, google doc, google sheet etc. So naturally I was looking for a good machine that had zero local processing capabilities and more cloud computing facilities.

The new Lenovo Chromebook laptop I purchased from Amazon at a rate of INR 13,500 exchanging my 10 year old HP 430 was no doubt a fantastic purchase. It was a clear bargain buy one can get the day before Christmas. 

Since all my work is on the Internet accessing the different tech and development websites, besides Economist, HBR, Forbes and other sites and working on the Google cloud, this was definitely a great buy considering the fact all investment on local hardware would be a sheer waste. I wanted only minimal local hardware investment. These days there is nothing one can't get off the net.

It was just two years back that I spent a fortune buying the latest Lenovo for my daughter who needed it for carrying out her PG studies and research at IIPR Bangalore doing her PG in pyschology and counseling from Bangalore university. 

The only difference with that machine is it had besides good online access, good local hardware and gaming capabilities, working on Intel 7i chipset. This is a simple Celeron N4020 chipset single core at app 2 GHz speed. 

In the wildest of dreams I never expected Amazon to offer me about INR 6500 on exchanging my 10 year old HP laptop HP360 with Intel 3i chipset. This is why I say Amazon continues to marvel and surprise me with offers and rates that are excellent for the customer, with extreme cuxtomer focus that makes it a pleasure and gainful, doing ecommerce with Amazon.

The only drawback I found after working on it for almost 4 hours it has a limited functionality keyboard with missing page up and page down, end of line and beginning of line buttons. With all the regular data intensive apps, for me mostly word processing and AI, moving to the cloud, what is the purpose of having local heavy duty processors for just doing text processing work ? I do not waste time on gaming and is not a fan at all. Using the Chrome book, it becomes very easy to work in the Google Metaverse, and porting between Google apps becomes so easy. Weighing just 1.1 kg, just about 1.9 cm thick, it is a real good value. 

Once I start downloading Android apps from Google Playstore onto this laptop and start working on it, clearly removing the demarcation line between the mobile phone and laptop, I can do serious Internet app work on the laptop instead of the palmsized mobile phones. With a great 10 hour battery life, charging through 230 V AC, the new battery has long life and along with easy wifi connectivity, going online is no problem at all. This is also an added asset for the laptop.

The 4 GB RAM and 64 GB internal memory, moderatly strong processor at 2.4 GHz, not so good gaming capabilities, with capability to add another 256 GB external memory, this machine is definitely a bargain buy,

While I am still unable to find how I can work on the latest Ubuntu Unity 22.1 Linux OS using USB in this Chrome OS laptop, I could work on the native Debain 10 Buster distribution. I do not see the initial BIOS screen while booting to change the booting sequence. Figuring it out. Help will be appreciated.

George

Filling my car tyres with Nitrogen ..

 Our new Honda City VX MT had shown low air pressure for the past three four days. Since I could not get it refilled I kept it pending, but yesterday took it to the Ecity phase 1 petrol pump near HCL and D mart for filling. I had checked up with Raju uncle on Nitrogen filling and got a very positive response. 

I got all my tires Nitrogen filled yesterday. 

After checking up with friends, I found the advantages were manifold.

1. Longer period of correct tyre inflation - as Nitrogen molecules are said to be larger than the normal air molecules, Nitrogen leakage happens at a slower rate than air from the tyres. While normal air tyre, air drops by 1.5 psi every week, in a Nitrogen filed tyre, this drop happens over a period of 1-2 months. Hence the tyre remains inflated for a longer period of time.  (refer Ceat website click here)

2. Because normal tyre deflation happens at a slower pace, the tyres are properly inflated almost all the time and hence the fuel economy achieved is also high, by about 10-20 % on an average.

3. Because the tires are properly inflated for a longer period of time, the tyre surface is not subjected to unnatural loads with less pressure and this ensures longer tyre life. Less wear and tear of the tyre, giving it a longer life.

4. The ride is comfortable all the time as tyres are properly inflated.

5. Less visits to the petrol pump gives the public additional high quality time. 

6. Less deflation possibility reduces skidding chances and hence improves the tyre grip on the road and hence passenger safety.

7. Air has water vapour molecules that result in corrosion of the inside steel surface of the wheel rim. With Nitrogen, there is less chance of corrosion happening and hence savings in wheel replacement.

8. Normal air has water vapour that gets heated after long distance running, leading to heating of tyre and degradation of the tyre performance, this phenomenon is quite rare in Nitrogen filled tyres.

My 8 year old Tata Nano still has normal nylon tyres and is air inflated, while the new one has Nitrogen filled radial tyres.

I am awaiting my friends' comments to add a couple more points here.

George. (pic courtesy carblogindia.com)

Digital Creative AI art ..

Can White Artificial Intelligence (AI) be beneficial to mankind ?

We humans are used to the term Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning etc in the context of Industry 4.0. But in the rush to propagate new advanced technology,  we frequently overlook the disadvantages of these new technologies. As much as these new technologies bring in benefits and gains to humanity, it can also be equally dangerous and detrimental to humanity.

It cannot think outside the box for solutions to environmental and societal degradation, 

We are looking to the times when AI / ML will 

• cost heavily to implement and use
• have bias that can be ethically incorrect and work against a community or group in society
• be emotionless, unable to assess the opposite party's feedback and act appropriately on it
• subject to hacking it can be dangerous to humans and the environment and lead to inappropriate actions
• pose threat to information security 
• pose threat to individual privacy
• be environmentally polluting and cause harm
  
• liable to be hacked and pose physical threat to humans etc ..

The solution to all this could be White AI. Usually the colour white is associated with peace, justice, welfare, growth, development etc. 

White AI which could be 

• beneficial to all living beings on the planet, all flora and fauna, in the long run. 
• work with humans to benefit planet earth and humanity on the whole, beneficial to humanity, 
• collaborate with humans to bring growth and development to humanity
  
• do repetitive tasks with great accuracy 
• remove the risks associated with human errors
• carry out unbiased decision-making
• secure and safe from data thefts and hacking and so on.
  

While green AI could be environmentally sustainable and have low carbon footprints, white AI could additionally be beneficial to mankind and all flora and fauna on earth, possess low operational risks and bring peace to planet earth.

Even though this cannot be easily attained, this could be the basis on which all future AI developments should be happening.

George..

Google Artificial Intelligence, a great friend..

We have all the time been hearing, and indeed have a lingering fear in the back of our heads of how AI can replace humans and how it could be a threat to humanity in the long run. But carrying out an instance of an effective case of human-AI classroom collaboration, this impression is getting a changeover.

Human-AI collaboration is the study of how humans and artificial intelligence agents work together to accomplish a shared goal. AI systems can aid humans in everything from decision making tasks to art creation. -wikipedia

Human-AI symbiosis means interactions between humans and AI can make both parties smarter over time - H. Jarrahi

Here we explain a case of human-AI collaboration which is maturing into case of human AI symbiosis.

An AI depiction of Alliance University

A very practical case of human AI collaboration has happened in the MBA sem 3 Operations classroom in Alliance University Bangalore, India from August 2022- Dec 2022 when in the MBA third semester subject of Operations Strategy and Environmental Sustainability,  in about 20 sessions, the 46 students had the benefit of taking 22 quizzes, ie. at the rate of 1.1 quiz for every classroom session, besides four internet based multimedia quizzes too. The benefits this has brought to the student community is being assessed. 

 

In a 2020 study (click here) conducted at the Iowa state University in US it was found that the students who were quizzed at least once a week tend to do better in their understanding and grades than those who were not. The AI intervention in this case was not in the quiz administration but in the help offered by Google AI that helped the faculty member to prepare the high quality  quizes with the help of AI resources.

The multiple quizzes which were administered almost on a daily basis would not have been possible but for the big help offered by the Free and Open Source software MOODLE, the Learning Management System (LMS software) in Alliance University, Bangalore, to a very large extent Google AI and the Google cloud.

In quick feedback taken from students, they were positive at being able to assess for themselves their own understanding of the concepts, get almost daily and weekly feedback on their improved awareness of subject fundamentals to help improve their performance in the subject. Final exams are almost a fortnight away, student performance at that would highlight the real benefit of AI in aiding and improving student academic achievements, understanding and grades.

Google Decision Tree AI algorithms aided in preparing questions that  accessed the extremes of human ingenuity, understanding and comprehension in each subject area, which was otherwise impractical and out of reach of human intelligence and perseverance. Entire case studies were also prepared courtesy Google AI.

Looking forward eagerly to complete this Human-AI collaboration classroom exercise this semester and analyse the results in depth over the coming weeks and see this mature into a human AI symbiosis exercise soon. This would result in spanning out further  human-AI collaboration classroom exercises for other courses and get a comprehensive outcome, promising or otherwise, that could further push the boundaries of student understanding, grip and mastery over a subject domain and help the student community the world over.

George 

Competition and Strategy for EPGDM .. AI, Positivity and optimism in action ...

It was with a little trepidation that I undertook the challenge when our Area Chair Sukanya asked me whether I could engage the subject of Competition and Strategy for EPGDM term 3 students, core subject, in the city campus. I had to prepare the syllabus, was given the choice to choose the text books and had to finish the course in 5 sessions of 4 hrs each spread over 5 weekends, had to give 2 assignments and assess it and prepare objective quiz questions for each week, about 40 questions each, total 5 quizzes.

It was a minor interesting challenge. I have been teaching the subject of Operations Strategy for Operations students for the past 5 or more years and have been reading on core Operations strategy related topics from HBR and other quality reading material for many years. With all optimism and positive thinking, I took up the challenge. I knew Artificial Intelligence was by my side too.

I started hunting around for general strategy text books and somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew Michael Porter from Harvard Business school is the big daddy or dada in strategy. So from Amazon I ordered all the three Strategy books by Porter, Competitive Strategy (1980), Competitive Advantage (1985) and Competitive Advantage for Nations (1990). Started reading them. All the three were classic ones, 500 pages+ each with in-depth content. 

Reading and understanding Porter's content in detail was taking too much time. I understood no text book considered strategy in the depth to which Porter handled it in his books. So I understood I need not go in such depth to deliver the subject to EPGDM students. I am anyhow reading the three strategy books penned by Porter during free time. 

To ensure that I give the best strategy classroom sessions in the world, I even went to the extent of going through some of the basic books that have helped the field of strategy over the past three thousand years. Plato's Republic (4th century BC) and Homer's Illiad (8th century BC) gave me good insight into how the field of strategy has developed and blossomed over the recent modern times. Homer's Iliad, in fact, laid the foundation for the growth and development of western civilization and culture over the past three thousand years, while we know Egyptian, Middle East, Arab, Indian and Chinese civilizations are more older than the western one.

I started reading Porter's Competitive Strategy anyway. When on a Saturday afternoon for LOM class I met Praveen, EPGDM in the F1 campus, he gave me a text book which i found interesting - Strategic Management, by Hill, Schilling and Jones, 12 edition, Cengage Publishing. After each session I also had to prepare quiz of min 40 - 50 questions to be given to the Assistant, Bhogaan who would with Hussain, the IT person, put up a Moodle (Free and Open Source software) quiz for the students to take over a  aweek. 

It was here Google Artificial Intelligence became a great help. I used Google AI to convert speech to text for transcribing  the quiz questions, Google AI helped me with the spelling and grammatical mistakes. Google AI additionally helped me to give more than a 360 degree view of the topic and prepare relevant and appropriate questions for the quiz. 

Every weekend with some basic text editing to put the question in the Aiken format, within 2 hrs of an average, I could set up the quiz questions for each week. All the while I was using the Google cloud and Google was my best friend during this 2 month period of preparations and delivery of the subject of Competition and Strategy for the EPGDM term 3 students.

The classes started by the last week of November, Saturday 3 to 7.30 PM. I engaged classes for 4 consecutive weeks as one weekend we were in Tiruvalla, Kerala for my cousin Joy's (Kerala Chief Secretary) daughter's marriage.  I have to wait for the feedback from the students to get to know how effective I was and whether I need to improve, read more and deliver more quality content if I am given the subject again next term.

I heaved a sigh of relief when I completed it two days back. It was a challenge that I executed with great precision and preparation and i feel content that the experience besides helping me take the subject, has made me more informed about crucial strategy issues when I handle Operations subjects in the coming days. It was a great blessing in disguise. I am bustling with enthusiasm and energy now, radiating lot of self confidence and positive energy.

Looking forward to more such challenges that will enrich my knowledge and require me to do lot of reading.

George.