AI SUMMIT NYC

I totally meant to attend this summit in NYC last week . Tickets paid for, events picked, calendar printed, and everything was going great, until I got to the vital issue of parking.

Parking in New York City is always a drag. I used to park in Secaucus and take the train to Penn Station and walk all over. This time, I decided I was going to drive all the way, chiefly because I now live very far away from Secaucus and yet closer to NYC. I found one last spot in a garage close to Javits Center, but then here's the odd thing - That garage proudly announced, “We do not allow Teslas”. “No problem”, was my spontaneous reaction.

I don't own a Tesla. But me, as I am, am quite the cautious girl. I had to sit and think about it just a little. “No Teslas” Just one day after Elon Musk went and tweeted something about a Preferred Jews Theory? This wasn't random. I wanted to check if the garage just meant, “No charging stations” but I never could.

And the super cautious me, as I have turned into since the pandemic, (No jokes, there is a Penn Station related incident that I am trying hard to forget) decided not to attend. I could have taken the train, but that would have been quite a tedious journey for me. I hope everybody had a gala time and learnt everything about how to save the future while leveraging the best bits of AI.

What did I miss?

Gathering information that others in the industry subscribe to, has its advantages. Information must be free for all. This AI Summit wasn't free. I had to pay an entry fee.

But really, I was working on an APP idea. After sitting on it for about a year, wondering where I'd get that data that connects two parts of a retail industry vertical, I realized it is now an AI Model much like the AI Image Recognition Model or AI Language Learning model. At the summit I might have learned all about that in detail.

Oh well, maybe next time. I do see some resources online. Online research is never the same as doing leg work, but things may go mainstream soon.

This is the last post of the year.

Will be back next year for the rest of the two bits of regulation I've been summarizing on this blog in the series I call - A.I. Regulation.

On Doppelgangers

In my hometown back in India, the comedian that ruled is still unchallenged about thirty years later. People in my circle still believe that he has made it somewhere, hit it big, even if no one knows where he is. Legends are such.

But that is not the whole story.

The story is more like this - In America he has a doppelganger doing very well in Hollywood. Of course that celeb will vehemently deny that he is in fact the doppelganger. He'll only claim that the unknown entity over on the Eastern Hemisphere is the real doppelganger, and really who can blame him?

But this is truly an act of God. Is this what life is all about? This struggle?

His legendary jokes, attributed only to him, like those “That's what she said” jokes attributed only to the writers of Office (U.S.), and so on, push him up to the status of classic on a global platform. It is true that not all talented people hit it big. In fact, very few do. Those who make it are not always high on talent especially these days.

But wait, there's more…

Imagine the confusion when a writer is recognized for his script before we know what he looks like. Especially when someone somewhere by that very name is also in the industry so to speak. Well, this too happened. At the same time that the western DG was rising, another writer by the same name was credited on a show with well-known stars that ran over two seasons on a popular network.

In my own space, I was just beginning to gain a footing. I had published a few short stories and my blog, not this one, was trending. Since I was doing this in America, to someone over in India I become the only connection into this world where they spotted their old friend's name. Pretty soon a buzz developed. Rallying after that sitcom was a group on Facebook that had, unknown to them, never met the writer on that show.

Ages after that show got cancelled, the writer was featured. And as it turns out, he was younger by at least twenty years, and an Indian American unknown to us.

I did begin to wonder after about two episodes. The style was way off, and really, I couldn't watch - I found it that unfunny, but this is not a review.

The point is this - people often find themselves deep in a misunderstanding. This is a classic example of one. This kind of thing can go either way when it clears.

In this anecdote of one hometown well-known, there are two misunderstood doppelgangers, not one. One is a true DG who happens to look and sound like him as well. A second one just has his name and is in the same industry but looks nothing like him and his style is entirely different.

And I really had no way of getting to this truth until Hollywood Reporter did an expose on the second guy. The hoopla died down the next day. That sitcom has been relegated to the bottom of the pile where it belongs no matter how big the cast. Honestly, not a review, these are just facts. (Are you trying to guess what show? Go ahead. It exists. Everything here is factual)

I guess the second moral of this story is - people from India count as audience members. This is also just a fact.

Thank you for reading.