Abhijit Naskar's Blog, page 38

Statement on Generative AI | Abhijit Naskar

Just like Artificial Intelligence as a whole, on the matter of Generative AI, the world is divided into two camps - one side is the ardent advocate, the other is the outspoken opposition. As for me, I am neither.

I don't have a problem with AI generated content, I have a problem when it's rooted in fraud and deception. In fact, AI generated content could open up new horizons of human creativity - but only if practiced with conscience. For example, we could set up a whole new genre of AI generated material in every field of human endeavor. We could have AI generated movies, alongside human movies - we could have AI generated music, alongside human music - we could have AI generated poetry and literature, alongside human poetry and literature - and so on. The possibilities are endless - and all above board. This way we make AI a positive part of human existence, rather than facilitating the obliteration of everything human about human life.

This of course brings up a rather existential question - how do we distinguish between AI generated content and human created material? Well, you can't - any more than you can tell the photoshop alterations on billboard models or good CGI effects in sci-fi movies. Therefore, that responsibility must be carried by experts, just like medical problems are handled by healthcare practitioners. Here I have two particular expertise in mind - one precautionary, the other counteractive.

Let's talk about the counteractive measure first - this duty falls upon the shoulders of journalists. Every viral content must be source-checked by responsible journalists, and declared publicly as fake, i.e. AI generated, unless recognized otherwise. Littlest of fake content can do great damage to society - therefore - journalists, stand guard!

Now comes the precautionary part. Precaution against AI generated content must be borne by the makers of AI, i.e. the developers. No AI model must produce any material without some form of digital signature embedded in them, that effectively makes the distinction between AI generated content and human material mainstream. If developers fail to stand accountable out of their own free will, they must be held accountable legally.

On this point, to the nations of the world I say, you can't expect backward governments like our United States to take the first step - where guns get priority over children - therefore, my brave and civilized nations of the world - you gotta set the precedent on holding tech giants accountable - without depending on morally bankrupt democratic imperialists. And remember, the idea is not to ban innovation, but to adapt it with human welfare.

All said and done, the final responsibility falls upon just one person, and one person alone - the everyday ordinary consumer. Your mind has no reason to not believe the things you find on the internet, unless you make it a habit to actively question everything - or at least, not accept anything at face value. Remember this. Just because it's viral, doesn't make it true. Just because it's popular, doesn't make it right.

White Fragility Sonnet (A Record of White Crimes Against Humanity) | Abhijit Naskar | 100 Demilitarization Sonnets

Whiteness has done more harm to the world than good,
Till you look past your whiteness, you cannot be human.
Orange ‘n musky trash of white privilege diss diversity,
What else would you expect from colonial descendants!

Every generation has its fraudsters like Edison,
Every generation has trashy maniacs like Columbus.
Every generation has war-merchants like Kissinger,
Every generation has its churchillian doofus.

White people tortured the Africans,
White people booted Native Americans;
White people massacred the Vietnamese,
White people lynched and looted the Indians.

White people caused genocide after genocide,
Yet you still boast about white superiority.
You proclaim that people of color are inferior,
While white society is the epitome of savagery.

If devil had a color, it would be white –
Yet I say, color is nonsense, we’re all equal.
I am human enough to give you place beside me,
All I expect is that, a human behaves human.

After all the heartaches inflicted by white people,
A 100 generations worth apology won’t be sufficient.
Yet I am human enough to declare, we are all equal;
All I ask is that, humans finally behave human.

They say, I’m spreading hate against the whites;
To which I say, human making is my mission.
There is no hope for humanitarian uplift,
Unless you renounce all fragile intoleration.

If you wanna learn about tolerance, ask a person of color,
How do you even tolerate the sight of white people, when
the wrongs done to you by whites are unparalleled in history!
You’ll realize, there’s no mythical secret to integration,
For ages we’ve known no other life but of inclusivity.

Middle East, India and Far East,
have been the melting pot of integration,
before the whites even knew what integration is.
Yet you say white people are superior – so be it;
Cowards always take refuge in fairytales,
to justify their fragility and prejudice.

If you wanna be a decent human being,
Never draw moral parameters from the west.
No matter whether you’re born of east or west,
Remember, you are human first, then all else.

To recognize diversity is science,
To celebrate diversity is humanity.
To recognize privilege is common sense,
To abandon privilege builds human society.

World First, Nation Never (Denationalizing Sonnet) | Abhijit Naskar | Military is Terrorism

No government wants to manufacture terror,
But they do want to manufacture control.
In doing so they end up manufacturing terror,
Thus they end up manufacturing war.

There is no such thing as war on terrorism,
The whole narrative is rigged to peddle fear.
Citizens without fear are citizens without border,
Democratic autocracy thrives on civilian fear.

Ceasefire only postpones war,
What’s needed is demilitarization.
Till borderly apes wake apart national pride,
Democracy only sustains a paradigm of poison.

World first and forever, nation never;
Till then, all blood is on your hands.
Either you are a nation’s simian citizen,
or you are planet earth’s civilized human.

Shared existence is only existence | Abhijit Naskar | Pani, Agua, Water, It’s All One

They ask me,
why do you speak for so many cultures,
when you are not born in those cultures?
So I asked the sun,
why do you share your light with earth,
when you are not born of earth?

The sun told me,
o ye of little mind, don’t you know,
light is not mine to give!
Light is the intrinsic right of life,
I am merely accessory to the motive.

I exist when you exist;
You exist, therefore I exist.
Shared existence is only existence,
Scared existence is existence ruined.

I am Justice absolute | Abhijit Naskar | Bulletproof Backbone

don’t care if my blood courses through your veins, I only care whether my ideas electrify your nerves. I don’t give a damn if I leave no bloodly offspring, my sole objective is to leave behind godly bravehearts.

I am Justice absolute – Jehovah absolute – Jehennem (Hell) absolute! I am Conscience absolute – Christ absolute – Cosmos absolute! I am Harmony absolute – Human absolute – Heaven absolute!

I am the first prophet and the last – I am the keeper of eternity. I am time, I am space – I am the beginning of love, and the obliteration of inhumanity.

I am but that – that one ceaseless truth,
aspiring across all fallacies untrue.
I am but that – that one untainted light,
shining as proof of time yet to come true.

Every time this prehistoric world even dreams of tyranny, bearing its political, bureaucratic, legal, or religious badge of authoritarianism, remember who you are. You are brahmanda (cosmos) in a brain – you are the first, second and last coming – you are the one who parted Red Sea – you are but consciousness dawning.

Topnut, DOD Sonnet | Abhijit Naskar | Bulletproof Backbone

Take a fancy celebrity,
put them in military uniform,
suddenly everybody is a patriot.
That’s how primitive this world is,
everybody yells about world peace,
while living in militarist gutter.
The best propaganda is one that,
does not feel like propaganda;
Best way to legally recruit terrorists,
is to portray terrorism as valor.
Best way to sustain the revenues of war,
is to showcase war as peace-intervention.
Till you grow up and denounce all militarism,
don’t you dare call yourself a civilized human!
We scientists, doctors, nurses and teachers,
forget self-preservation for life-preservation,
while primitive civilians of a primitive planet,
throw all that away, hypnotized by patriotism.

Naskar is Made by Naskar Alone | Abhijit Naskar | Bulletproof Backbone

Naskar is made by Naskar alone, not an industry or benefactor – or more importantly, by family wealth. I had a roof over my head, food on the table, and clothes on my back – that was more than enough.

I started writing with literally zero dollar in my pocket. Let me tell you how it began, because for some reason, I completely forgot a crucial event of my life when I wrote my memoir Love, God & Neurons.

I once met an American tourist at a local train in Calcutta. The first thing he asked me was, had I lived in the States? I said, no. Then how come you have an American accent – he asked. Watching movies – I said. We got chatting and he told me about a book he had recently published, a memoir. I believe, this was the cosmic event that planted the thought of writing my own books in my head – I had already started my self-education in Neurology and Psychology, and I was all determined to publish research papers on my ideas, but not books. Meeting the person somehow subconsciously shifted my focus from research papers to books.

So the journey began. And for the first few years, I made no real money from my books. Occasionally some of my books would climb the bestsellers list on amazon, like my very first book did, and that would keep the bills paid for several months. Then the invitations for talks started coming, but they too were not paid in the beginning. The organizers made all the travel arrangements, and I gave the talks for free. It’s ironic and super confusing really – I remember flying business class, but I didn’t have enough money to even afford a one way flight ticket, because I had already used up my royalties on other expenses.

Today I can pick and choose which speaking invitations to accept, but back then I didn’t have that luxury – I was grateful for any speaking gig and interview request I received, paid or not. One time, I gave an interview to this moderately popular journalist for her personal youtube channel, only to find out, she never released the video publicly – she posted an interview with a dog owner instead – whose dog videos had gained quite a following on social media. You could say, this was the first time I realized first hand, what white privilege was.

Anyway, the point is this.

Did I doubt myself? Often. Did I consider quitting? Occasionally. But did I actually quit? Never. And because I didn’t quit, the world received a vast never-before seen multicultural humanitarian legacy, that you know me for today.

There is no such thing as overnight success. If you have a dream, you gotta work at it day in, day out – night after night – spoiling sleep, ruining rest, forgetting fun. Persist, persist, and persist, that’s the only secret – there is no other. Remember this – the size of your pocket does not determine your destiny, the size of your dedication does.

Iman Insaniyat, Mazhab Muhabbat (Pani, Agua, Water Sonnet) | Abhijit Naskar | Bulletproof Backbone

In some circles, I am called a genius,
Yet the only genius I know of is service.
In other circles, I am branded fraud,
Yet the only fraud I know of is prejudice.

Saying, you’ve explored my work,
after spending an evening scrolling
through a few quotes, is like saying,
you’ve climbed Mount Everest,
after spending an evening scrolling
through pictures of the Himalayas.

Yet I can tell you who I am,
I don’t need a million lines but one.
Iman insaniyat, mazhab muhabbat*;
Pani, agua, water, it’s all one.

Take my Bible, Koran & Vedas,
Take my Origin of Species.
Throw me to the fires of hell,
My life will still smell of roses.

(*faith humanity, religion love)

I’m Impossible (Sonnet 1272) | Abhijit Naskar | Bulletproof Backbone

I don’t need to play word games,
to say, impossible means I am possible;
my existence is epitome of the impossible.
I don’t make plans, I make purpose,
then the purpose plans me, into unstoppable.

Does that mean, loneliness doesn’t bother me,
Of course it does – it makes the torture worse.
Anybody who says, they enjoy loneliness,
is either lying or plain narcissistic retard.

But then again, just when I feel super gloomy,
I remember my responsibility to my world family.
Time and again, my purpose drags me out,
Electrifying my veins with incorruptible duty.

¡Viva la humanidad, viva la familia mundial!
Long live humanity, long live world family!
Whenever you are down, take refuge in purpose;
Your purpose will reawaken your invincibility.

Never confuse culture with state | Abhijit Naskar | Bulletproof Backbone

Never confuse culture with state. Some of the richest cultures of the world often end up with some of the most regressive states in the world – Türkiye, Azerbaijan, India, Italy to name a few, in the context of 2023.

So I repeat, never let your disapproval of a government make you bitter towards a culture. Government never reflects culture – if it did, I would not have penned a single Turkish word in my works – as opposed to the fact that, the Turkish culture is an intrinsic element of Naskarean literature.

Also, while we are on the subject of my writing, I shall address a minor issue, which I’ve been overlooking for a while now.

Across the globe I am often referred to as “the Indian neuroscientist” or “the Indian Author”, despite the fact that my work is practically nonexistent in India, statistically speaking. Considering that, 90% of my book sales come from US, UK and Canada, the rest 10% from Europe, Mexico, South America and Australia, and zero from India – for transparency and context purposes I’ll tell to you one more time – Abhijit Naskar is an Earth Scientist – Abhijit Naskar is an Earth Poet – Abhijit Naskar is an Earth Philosopher.

However, it’s never about the sales, it’s about the love. I only mention the demographics to put things in perspective. For example, there are many countries where people cannot afford to buy my books, since they are expensively exported from US and Europe, and yet, I receive far more love from these countries than the land I was born in. Philippines and Pakistan to name a few. As a matter of fact, hate wise speaking, Philippines is the only country so far, where I have not faced any hate and bigotry – which only goes to prove that, state of a currency does not reflect the broadness of heart. That’s why, a substantial portion of my work is available freely on the internet.

The point is – I am no more Indian, than I am a Yank or Canadian or Mexican or Turk or Swede or Pinoy or British or Brazilian or Egyptian or Aussie. Passport is just a glorified bus pass – nothing more. So, I repeat – I am an Earth Scientist – remember that. Nationalization of Naskar is desecration of Naskar.