Abhijit Athavale's Blog

Dall.E as it's famously known, has a waitlist of over a 1 million - I signed up today. I have been using Craiyon , previously known as Dall.E Mini, for some time now and have stumbled into an interesting finding. The images that Craiyon creates are very similar to a Google Image search for the same text. Both give me multiple options, but I am just taken aback by the fact that the AI is giving me an option that I can also see in Google. Don't trust me? Here are the results: First is a search for High Technology Marketing.  Second is a longer phrase, the value of search engine optimization. Is this by design  in the sense that the AI is just following the bias of what it finds on the internet? I found this on their website: Bias CONTENT WARNING: Readers should be aware this section contains content that is disturbing, offensive, and can propagate historical and current stereotypes. The model was trained on unfiltered data from the Internet, limited to pictures with English desc...

A recent visit to an exhibition of stamped papers from various Indian Princely states led me down this rabbit hole. Colloquially known as Stamp Paper in India, in reality it should be called a  Stamped Paper  - a foolscap sheet that bears a pre-printed or embossed revenue stamp.  A British act of 1765 decreeing all colonies in the new world to use stamped papers printed in Great Britain seems to have caused the Americans to revolt against the empire. And yet, people oftentimes don't realize the power of a piece of blank paper. Adolph Koeppel's book on this topic sells for $150 now on Amazon, far far more expensive than what a stamped paper would have cost in those times, perhaps even more than the properties in question. The stamped paper is used to collect the stamp duty - a tax collected on purchase of property or on official documents. Obviously, you need a revenue stamp to complete the loop - a deliciously bureaucratic process with origins in the Ottoman empire. It's...