On Names and AI

Akshay

You would have already read my little introduction earlier. (If you haven't, why don't we take a moment to click on that link and read it for a bit?)

Yes, my name is Akshay. It means 'infinite' in Sanskrit. What infinite?, you ask. Infinite anything I would reply. Fame, fortune, weight, wisdom, imagination... you name it. Personally though, I think of it as a bit of a meta-pun. I'm someone who's name (i.e. fame) is infinite. And the absolutely fascinating bit is, minus classical Telugu postpositions ("vibhaktulu"), it is actually gender-neutral in its current form.

Don't know if my parents thought of it that way though. They just looked up The Penguin Book Of Hindu Names and thought this one sounded nice. Won't disagree. I'm just adding on additional layers of meaning to personalize it even more.

aksh.ai

Now you're probably seeing the little pun in the domain name here, and are already probably cringing. That is okay. That is to be expected. But you're probably wondering if there's anything more to this than a forced attempt at multi-lingual humour.

The short answer is: nope. The longer answer is: oh well.

I first purchased this domain name back in 2018 as a lark. It is still a source of some chuckles, and want to keep it that way. However, this is 2026, and in the data/ tech world, 2018 is a lifetime away. So a few caveats are perhaps useful.

AI

I like to think of myself as a "classical AI"-ist, the AI with regression analysis, optimisations etc which I learnt in NUS back in 2002, and again at work starting in 2019 and with GeorgiaTech recently. That's slightly different from Generative AI, which is the AI that you see in the Generative Pre-trained Transformers such as ChatGPT. As it happens, while I have used generative transformers since Apr 2021 at least, when we used Large Language Models to categorize large volumes of textual data, I'm not messianic about it.

You see, I am of the opinion that AI should be seen as a normal technology, and specifically, that GenAI is a lossy data compression technique. There are indeed some very interesting things you can do with AI.

Unfortunately, there are some systemic risks are something we are only beginning to understand now. Major risks such as bias, sycophancy, and societal loss of skills. I do not believe that such risks include AGI or any Star-Trek-ian nonsense, but definitely include exploitation by some extractive overlords with deep pockets.

Even more troubling, we seem to be finding newer and newer risks every single day. Fixation on AI has clearly caused delusions in many, often to deeply saddening, catastrophic results. (A million suicidal tendencies every week, per the linked article... alarming!) Prompt-injections aren't yet a solved issue; opening new ways to interface AI agents has, well, very unprompted incidents that simply should not have happened.

There is a very strong case to be made for AI guardrails. I happen to work in that space as well, indeed with local regulators. I do believe it is important to think of ethics in this space: what is "good" behaviour, what isn't etc. Enforcement can come next, but a first important step is to be critically alert in these overwhelming times.

.ai

And then there's the question of the TLD .ai: a reference to Anguilla, a British Overseas Territory of about 16,000 souls living on a 91 sq.km. island set in the Caribbean.

In 2018, when I first bought this domain, the government of Anguilla earned about USD 2.8 million selling domain names. By 2023, it became $32 million, or 10% of their annual revenue. By 2025: more than 47% of their annual revenue (Wikipedia). Clearly governmental spin, but new airports, infrastructure, reduction in local VAT etc thanks to revenue from this TLD. "Anguilla is truly a blessed place, and this is as a gift, as we can only say, was given to us by God", says their minister.

All lovely, and a warm post-colonial cheer from one tropical island to another. Just that, please don't confuse Anguilla with Antigua, which is another Caribbean island with such notables as incomparable cricketing great Viv Richards.

www.aksh.ai

There was one interest in this domain by someone else named Akshay, but he saw my previous posts, was impressed, and backed away. I have also gotten an offer.

I'm not saying no. Just saying convince me.

Using AI here

None of the textual or image content here will be AI-generated. Everything you read here will be hand-crafted by me. However, it is likely that I will discuss how AI can be used, use AI techniques to analyse large volumes of data, or to generate code that will analyse such data. In such cases, I will cite usage to the extent possible. I generally follow Georgia Tech's policy in this regard, which broadly is as follows:

• If you must 'chat' with GenAI, do it in a different window.
• Do not paste anything from a GenAI chat back into whatever you're typing.
• Cite where you can.

This has been the approach for all the previous posts at ganitam.aksh.ai and will continue to be here as well.

I will add one more though: may create quick rapid prototypes using vibe-coding. Not mission-critical code, just idle sketches on a Sunday afternoon. Will ensure the code is always open-source, and there are clear unit-tests/ standards. But content-wise, all me.