How Amazon and AI is changing our lifestyle ..

When was the last time you went to a shop to buy books, dresses, footwear, electronic gadgets, home furnishings, home furniture or home cleaning items and the like ?

It will come as a big surprise to realise that over the past four or five years ever since the Covid scourge, almost all of the above purchases went online and were made over the net with the help of a website. The order fulfilment went flawless. The deliveries were on time, the product features and performance were as promised, the product was authentic. 

The product returns if any, went flawlessly, one never had to followup regarding refunds and pickup. If ever one felt like talking about a product or delivery to a customer service executive, it was just a click away.

When was the last time one went to a shop to book travel tickets, flight, rail or bus and book our stay at hotels across the country or to buy medicines ? Our shift to the online comfortable mode is more or less over and complete except for visits to the doctor and dentist.

When was the last time we went to a bank to withdraw money or open a fixed deposit or pay our monthly EMIs and our utilities bills ? We carry excess money in our digital wallets and not in  the physical ones. The technology behind United Payment Interface (UPI) and the many digital wallets have made transactons easier, reliable and documented. Even our visits to entertainment hubs, theatres, sports and games complexes have been secured digitally. 

Life over the past five years has become a lot more easier, pleasant, enjoyable, safe and secure. Thanks to technology and technological interventions. Artificial intelligence has played a great role in smoothening and expediting these experiences enabling creation of a  very fertile land for great innovations to follow.

The healthcare sector, justifiable so, remains still in the physical domain, till when ? The digital illustrations are copyrighted and created through Generative AI. 

Our lifestyle has changed a lot. AI so far, is working for the benefit of humanity ..

George 

An AI powered home - is it for the better ?

The quote by Sundar Pichai on AI is given on the right. His quote is very important to humanity as his company influences more than three fourth of humanity, through the cloud, Gmail, Google maps, Google Playstore, Google Chrome and the like,

I got my first Amazon AI pod Echo dot in 2017 Oct, within 2 months of Amazon releasing it in India. Ever since I have been a great fan of AI pods by Amazon, as it made by music listening experience much richer and joyful. Through Amazon AI, I came to know of artists of whom I had never heard and who were as good or even better than the artistes I knew. After a gap of 3 years after Amazon's Alexa, Google also got into this area with Google home. 

 

As of Sunday,14 May  2023, I have finally got my whole home in Electronic city Bangalore AI powered. With Amazon AI pods in all rooms, front room lights controlled by AI and Google Home in 2 rooms, it is AI way. In addition my office room in Alliance University central campus is also powered by an Amazon echo dot AI pod.

Dont know whether is for the good or bad, but keeping a bit ahead on the Gartner hype curve 2023. Only time can tell.

As a teaching professional, it is of utmost importance for me to be ahead of the hype curve. In the hype curve Machine Learning is just finished its initial hope and is climbing the rational bounds while Natural Languge processing in on the downward slope of the initial hype.

 

The AI apps that I work to make life easier, pleasant and enjoyable are 

• Google Maps, 
• Amazon AI Alexa and Google home for selecting a great collection of songs and artistes across all genres, languages and strains, including classical, instrumental and percussion, 
• Google AI and Open AI for lot of technology and management related topics for carrying research and greater understanding, 
• generative AI apps for artistic output, artistic AI apps, 
• AI powered ecommerce apps of Amazon with unmatched security,  
• Gmail emailing app offering powerful AI powered security 
• Amazon and Google AI smart assistants and the like.

Are you aware enough of the developments that are happening across the world on the Internet ? 

Nick Bostrom, the Oxford Professor and Swedish philosopher, author of Super Intelligence, Human Enhancement, Global Catastrophic Risks and others says this about Machine Inteligence,

Machine Intelligence is the last invention that humanity will ever need to make - Nick Bostrom

Nick Bostrom is of the strong opinion that the moment machine intelligence crosses that of humans, we will become useless and will become subservient to machines, that also speaks of the doom on humanity and the human race.

George 

Perfect place for a short rest under the tree at St John's Bangalore..

This morning Anila and myself were at St John's for taking Anila's blood tests. After initial blood collection we were asked to have breakfast and return by 11 am. After a quick bfast we were searching for some place to rest and spend the next 90 minutes.  

Between the OPD block, Super speciality block and St. John's Utility complex, there are two seating places with concrete benches under two trees, 24 seats each.

This is the perfect lace to rest, natural lighting, enough seats, cool, natural ventilation, lot of greenery and great view of vehicles and people moving across the three buildings. Lot of cool breeze also flowing around.

It reminds us how trees are one of human's greatest friends. For a patient or bystander this place is a perfect place to rest during daytime. 

Under this mango tree, in the morning there were lot of ripe mangoes that had fallen during  the night. It was taken away by the housekeeping staff later.

Traveling to countries not needing a visa..

While almost all countries of the world require tourists coming to their country to have a valid visa, there are many countries, that do not need a visa. One just needs a valid passport.

Click here for the list

George

Right to vote ..

On the 10th of May 2023, the Legislative assembly elections to Karnataka assembly elections were help by the Election Commission of India. Karnataka became a state on the first of November 1956 and ever since we have been having elections in Karnataka every five years.

Right to franchise enables people above the age of eighteen to vote in India. Indian democracy rests on this privilege and right given to all citizens to vote. 

But are citizens exercising their franchise responsibly. 

 

Universal adult franchise means the right of all citizens to vote who are 18 years and above, regardless of caste, education, religion, race, or ethnicity. Article 326 of the Indian Constitution describes Universal Adult Suffrage as the basis for elections to all levels of an elected government.

 

There are two causes of concern to the ordinary citizen here. They are 

1. the existence of bogus voting - with the connivance of the Election Commission officials and the ruling party, now Bharatiya Janata Party. 

2. Given that the electoral process was clean, if the victorious candidates after election results are announced shift their political stand and join parties waiting for a majority for material reasons. The Indian legal system says this defection is not possible for individual victorious candidates, but can be done by a group whose strength in the assembly is ten percent of more or something like that.

 

Either way the voter is being cheated.

 

The electoral process is so sacred that not party or individual should be able to subvert the process for their minor material gain. 

Let us hope in this Karnataka assembly elections all political parties stick to this model code of conduct and promise not to resort to horsetrading and buying of MLAs to get a simple majority in the assembly.

Satyameva Jayate.  Let us respect the intelligence of the voter and work for the country.

George.

Voting at Karnataka Legislative assembly elections 2023 May 10

All three of us went for voting today for the Karnataka legislative assembly elections today 10 May 2023 at Bethany school. Koramangala Bangalore. This is our first voting in Bangalore as we got voters Identity card only two years back. 

Not great rush as three counters were open parallel. Anila was in room 88 while Chinnu and myself were in room 89.

Before entering the booth we checked our names with the candidate teams outside the polling station. 

I am reminded of my election duty as Presiding officer in Goa, both Parliament and Goa Legislative assembly in Goa, at least 4 and 5 times respectively. It was very interesting and responsible then from 1990 to 2006 time period. I was young too.

Great feeling today of having participated in the Indian democratic process. I am only worried whether funds from Modi's very secretive PM Cares Fund where even govt departments  (my tax money..) and private organisations fund the party coffers, will be used to topple opposition governments. It is clear how the party secured power in majority of states by buying MLAs through the above secretive fund.

It is a big shame on the party  if even this time they have to resort to underhand dealings and engage in corruption to uy off MLAs to grab power in Karnataka. 

George 

One of the best pics of Easaw..

This pic was taken at the time of Easw's convocation in Barcelina in May '22.