Who am I, to write on AI?
For goodness’ sake, how can a machine learn? It is made of silicon wafers and just metal.
True, we don’t fully know how human beings, creatures made of carbon, learn. At least we are... well, “living beings“.
What is a living being?
Well, something that has a motivation to live.
Hmmm?!
I mean something that wants to move forward as much as possible and something capable of nurturing and passing on its essence, values, or care to the next generation, whether that is through blood, adoption, or mere inspiration.
Wow. That is a good definition. Stop.
What the heck does that have to do with the original question, “how” does a human learn?
Well, I think it has someth... Okay. Let’s get out of this rabbit hole.
Keep humans aside. For now, we are special. At least for now, while the scientists are still on it. But how on earth do machines, which are just sophisticated toys made by humans, actually “learn”?
That is a fundamental question. Now that AI, in the form of chatbots and agents, is in all our pockets and desks, we have to wonder. What does it mean for professionals? What does it mean for a writer or an artist? How can we embrace AI, and should we? In what parts of our lives does it truly belong? There are many, many questions like this.
I addressed a few of these briefly in my previous essay, “War of Progress, AI vs Our Jobs.” According to the analytics, that essay has 1,300 views so far, whatever a “view” actually means. This is motivating for someone who always wanted to write and finally started. Writing is still my tiny weekend project among my regular weekend activities. Fortunately, I write about things I am genuinely curious about, which means some of my leisure time or life experiences often overlap with research time. Motivated by this view count, I am starting a short series of essays on AI to explore these questions. The main goal is to slow down, and zoom in on AI with no jargon.
Coming to the point. Who am I to write on AI?
My crush hasn’t said a single word to me in three months. Not one. To be fair, that has been true since the very first time I saw her, around three months ago.
That kind of thing used to keep me up at night back in my school days. I also wondered if God exists.
In between those two, I worried about a lot of other things. Failed exams. Being a mediocre chess player or a mediocre badminton player. I was someone who loved probability but still couldn’t predict my failure in the upcoming math tests. I loved computer science and actually passed those tests. I even tried to prove to people that I could dance. I performed on a few live stages, and no one ran away.
I am a proud mediocre in many things. And the beauty of putting up with something to learn it, at least to a mediocre level, is that it stays with you almost forever.
Thanks to my sister’s bookshelf, back when she was pursuing a graduate degree in Computer Science, I slept with a book about “Artificial Intelligence” for a few days. It did not help. It seems that is not the way for a high school student to grasp advanced concepts.
I did not understand most of it. But it created a tiny compartment inside my brain dedicated to “Artificial Intelligence” from that moment on. Whenever I heard that keyword, something blinked inside my mind to focus.
That blinking continued through lunch discussions during my graduate course in Information Technology, where AI was a tiny part of the curriculum. The blinks followed me to the coffee tables of my software job. But those blinks became a beeping alarm around 2019. I suddenly registered for a remote certification course from Stanford University on the foundations of data science, all while working my full-time software career.
The alarm slowly settled back into a blink. But in 2026, this whole alarm setup exploded and became non-functional. Thanks to AI coding agents.
The certification I earned from Stanford was actually very basic. But I think the point of any course in school or college is about much more than the content itself. It is about keeping you in the “zone” of learning a specific topic by surrounding you with discussions, books, and related ideas. The key point is that it makes a lasting impact. Your mind forever retains a bit of that zone. I entered that zone of Artificial Intelligence through a three-month course from one of the world’s leading universities for Computer Science.
Because of that, for almost six years now, this AI compartment in my brain has burned bright. I am listening to and reading the top experts in the field while lying down and relaxing at the altar where I may eventually be sacrificed.
I processed AI with the analytical brain of a software engineer, and as a writer, I know how to communicate it to you. [Author pats their own shoulder. A little too much.]
I want to tell you that I stand on the shoulders of experts. In fact… just one more fact. A few years ago, I thought about starting a social media channel with video content and I joined a three-month online course, from a university in the US, on “Journalism”.
I did not actually complete it, though I finished 80%. Believe me. The course was offered in a way that was free until that point, but you had to pay to write the exam and get the certificate. I did not.
A course on journalism teaches you how to stand on the shoulders of actual experts, and dance.
I assure you I will give my level best in guiding you through this topic. I aim for 100% accuracy, though in reality, I may only touch 95% or even 75%. Feel free to take parts of it or throw parts of it away as you see fit.
So how AI works?
No one in the world understands it.
No, no, wait. This is not the punch line of a stupid joke that took fifteen minutes to build up. The one where people throw eggs and run after me.
What I mean is that no one including the experts, understands exactly how AI gives a specific output for the specific input we provide. But our scientists and engineers have a very good understanding of what goes into building these machines. After all, they did it.
The way AI is built is fundamentally different from almost all the engineering we have done since our great-grandparents built stone axes, some of which we can see today in the Chennai Museum.
Interestingly this is also touching each of our lives. It is important for all of us to take a thin layer of this AI cake from the scientific bakery and put it into our common sense lunch box. That is important for our personal lives, professional lives and even a democratic society itself.
So, we will explore AI together, with me as your expert curator.
As I said, writing is my tiny weekend project apart from the other mediocre pursuits, like singing, and people are still not running away. I will reach out once the first essay in this series is ready. Or the other long essay about “Crisis of truth”. Until then, have a great time! Cheers!
— sAb
(RECORD 003)