Living with AI

To be up close with the power and potential of AI can also be slightly unnerving

My knowledge of artificial intelligence is, to put it mildly, limited. In the 1980s, I was hooked to a TV show called Knight Rider, which featured the dashing David Hasselhoff and his crimefighter-in-arms — a talking, self-driving smart car named KITT. The show aired on Dhaka TV and Kolkatans of a certain vintage will remember the strenuous exertions one went through to watch American TV serials beamed from across the border. The process involved sending someone up to the roof to wiggle the antenna till it caught the transmission, or installing what we optimistically called a “booster” on top of