February 2022 – Advait Sarkar
1 post published by advaitsarkar during February 2022| Advait Sarkar
Can Artificial Intelligence (AI) be an author? A common reason cited against AI authorship is that AI is not a person. This article argues that the lack of personhood, in itself, does not disqualify AI as an author. Why not? Because we already detach personhood from authorship for many reasons, such as with pseudonyms, heteronyms, … Continue reading AI can be an author without being a person→| Advait Sarkar
The Economist has recently published an article titled “The working-from-home illusion fades” (archived version). The title has been wisely edited from its previous, more incendiary title, which called working from home a “delusion”; you can still spot it in the URL. As a researcher with a little knowledge in the field, I was concerned to … Continue reading Evaluating The Economist’s claim that remote work is less productive→| Advait Sarkar
In 2020, Microsoft Excel introduced a new function: LAMBDA. Software updates are frequent, and often go unnoticed. But sometimes, a software update brings something somewhat surprising: a shift in the identity of the user. The Lambda update shifts the identities of spreadsheet users and communities, and reinvigorates longstanding debates about whether spreadsheet use ought to … Continue reading Could a software update change your identity?→| Advait Sarkar
Describing our interaction with Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems as ‘collaboration’ is well-intentioned, but flawed. Not only is it misleading, but it also takes away the credit of AI ‘labour’ from the humans behind it, and erases and obscures an often exploitative arrangement between AI producers and consumers. In this article, I explore how the AI … Continue reading Enough with ‘human-AI collaboration’→| Advait Sarkar
Can you imagine using a computer without a mouse, keyboard, or touchscreen? Why would we even need to do that? In this article, we will learn how virtual on-screen ‘lenses’ can be controlled using eye-tracking technology, to magnify and show additional details on charts. Using your eyes to control a computer has some unexpected challenges, … Continue reading Look, no hands! Exploring data with your eyes→| Advait Sarkar
The idea of writing a computer program by writing English (or another natural human language) is attractive because it might make coding easier and faster. This article tells the story of my encounter with natural language programming as a graduate student, and the small working system I built. I discuss the idea of context limiting: … Continue reading Coding in natural language: let’s start small→| Advait Sarkar
The “metaverse” is the collective marketing term for a set of virtual reality media experiences. It is accessed using headsets such as the Oculus Quest, Valve Index, and HTC vive. It is often prese…| Advait Sarkar
In May 1997, millions of people, despite likely never having played a game of chess themselves, gathered around their televisions to watch chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov play. His opponent, what …| Advait Sarkar
Product design often encounters a tension between solving observable customer needs (reactive design), and inventing novel experiences without concrete basis in current customer behaviour, but whic…| Advait Sarkar
We typically think of charts as the end result of data analysis. To create a chart in Excel, you must first select some data. To produce a chart in Python or R using charting libraries, you must pr…| Advait Sarkar
