IISc Life 2.0: bhOndOO meets ChatGPT!!

The IISc campus was buzzing with activity and people. Each department building was adorned with banners and posters. A large number of college students, teachers and industry professionals were roaming around, as if visiting a fair or exhibition. The IISc students were soaking in the spirit of the Open Day, as this was one day when they had no fear of being called up by their advisors and quizzed about their latest report, experiment or theorem.

By the time bhOndOO reached CSA department, the "Computer Science Poetry Contest" had already started. Participants would read out their poems on any topic related to Computer Science. bhOnDOO hardly had any taste in poetry, but he had come on Madhu's request. Madhu was quite a poet, and she wrote a range of topics, including her research area - communication networks. She had invited all her friends, including bhOndOO, BenJi, Gullu and Aisha.

When bhOndOO reached, a college girl was reading out her take on different programming languages. She was followed by a software engineer, who presented three short limmericks about coding, debugging and data structures. A current PhD student from IISc read out a sonnet on linguistics. As each line was read out, the large audience - containing IISc students, visitors, and the judges - mostly CSA profs, clapped and applauded. "If only our lectures brought such applause", rued one of the profs.

Finally, Madhu's turn came. As she walked to the podium of the e-classroom, her friends - BenJi, Gullu and Aisha, sitting in the last row, clapped loudly. bhOndOO was sitting with them, but he didn't clap. "Hey bhOndOO, what's up? what are you thinking?", asked BenJi. "Oh!", bhOndOO came back to his senses, "I was just remembering all the lectures we used to have here!" "Hey common dude, during all those lectures too you used to sit in this last row and keep staring like that!", BenJi quipped. bhOndOO felt embarrassed. In reality, he was wondering if Shami liked poetry, and if there was some way in which he could write one for her.

Madhu read out her poem about computer networks. She tried to draw an analogy between message passing computers and two lovers exchanging love-letters. Her 10-line poem drew huge applause from everyone. "Madhu will surely win", said BenJi, as she finished.

After two more poems, the registered participants were finished. "Before we announce the winner", judge Prof. Hari called out, "Would anyone in the audience want to step up with an impromptu poem?"

Gullu had been doing something on his phone for the past few minutes. On hearing Prof. Hari's call, he stood up. "I want to read my poem on Machine Learning!" "Sure, go ahead!" said Prof. Hari. Gullu ran to the podium and read out enthusiastically from his phone,

"Machine learning, a marvel of our time,

A tool that can analyze and refine,

Data that flows like a stream,

To reveal patterns that were unseen.

It's a tech that's constantly growing,

Algorithms keep on improving,

Neural networks that are deep,

Making predictions truly steep."

He went on with a long poem of 20 lines. The rhymes and rhythms were quite perfect, and use of technical terms were very clever. The audience was simply bowled over. At the end of his poem, he said "I wrote this over the past 15 minutes!", and there was a stunned gasp from the audience and judges. The Profs quickly announced Gullu as the winner. Prof. Sheru said, "I will present this poem in my next Machine Learning class!"

Madhu was disappointed at missing out on the prize, but she clapped heartily for Gullu. But all of them were surprised. "I never knew Gullu would have any remote interest in poetry", murmured Benji, "I thought he only cared about sci-fi and sports!"

As the event concluded, all of them were coming out. Gullu seemed to have become a celebrity, as many in the audience hung around him to congratulate him. Some were requesting him for more poems. He was smugly soaking in the adulation. As he finally came out, bhOndOO asked him, "Hey Gullu, when did you start writing poems?"

Gullu gave him a pitiful look. "Man, you have remained a bhOndOO after all these years!"

"I accept, I can't write poems. But tell na, when did you start this?"

"And you still think I wrote it?", Gullu's tone was mocking. bhOndOO stared blankly.

"Dude, haven't you checked out ChatGPT?" Gullu now laughed, "Check it out, it can write anything you want. From poetry to research papers, everything!"

"What's this ChatGPT?", asked bhOndOO

"Dude, which world do you live?", mocked Gullu, "It is OpenAI's new chatbot! Based on Natural Language Processing and Reinforcement Learning!"

"You used a chatbot to win the contest? That's not fair!" protested bhOndOO.

"Not fair huh? You will remain a bhOndOO forever, no wonder Shami is not responding to you!", Gullu made a facial gesture as he walked away.

That evening, bhOndOO started exploring ChatGPT. He was amazed to see its capability. It could generate poems on any topic, but also answer technical questions on different subjects. bhOndOO marvelled at its abilities. And then a rare bright idea struck him. Maybe I too can take advantage of ChatGPT like Gullu, he thought.

"Write a love-letter for Shami from bhOndOO", he typed. ChatGPT took its time. For several seconds, the cursor kept blinking, without output. bhOndOO's spirit fell. "It is mocking me", he felt. But after 10 seconds, ChatGPT started producing text:

My dearest Shami,

Words cannot express the depth of my love for you. Every day, my love for you grows stronger and deeper. You have become my best friend, my confidant, and my soulmate.

I am so grateful to have you in my life. You bring so much joy, love, and laughter to my days. I love the way you make me feel, the way you make me laugh, and the way you make me want to be a better person.

I love the way you look at me with those beautiful eyes, and the way you hold my hand in yours. I love the way you make me feel special and loved, and the way you make me feel like the luckiest person in the world.

I cannot imagine my life without you, Shami. You are my everything and I promise to love you and cherish you for all the days of my life.

Forever and always,

bhOndOO

bhOndOO kept reading it over and over. Yes, this is miles better than what I could have written, he thought. He promptly started composing a new e-mail to Shami, and copied the ChatGPT text into it. With his heart rapidly beating, he moved his arrow on the "send" button, but could not press it. He tried again after a few seconds, and this time managed to press "send". But as the "undo" message appeared briefly, bhOndOO again pressed it and withheld the mail. "Is it correct to do this?", he wondered. But then he remembered Gullu smug face with the prize, and his taunts to bhOndOO, especially the one about Shami. Fired up by the sense of insult, bhOndOO sent off the mail. Exhausted, he fell asleep within a few minutes, with his laptop on.

When bhOndOO woke up after a few hours, the laptop was staring him at his face. For a few seconds his brain was blank, but then he remembered everything one by one, including the mail he had sent. His heart beat wildly as he now faced the prospect of having to see Shami's response mail, if any.

With trembling fingers, he went to his inbox. Sure enough, there was a response from Shami. With his heart pounding away, he opened the mail in a flood of sweat. And then, he slumped on the bed, headlong.

"Dear bhOndOO,On seeing your mail, I typed "write a love-letter for Shami" into ChatGPT. And this is the response I got."

Below, she had attached a screenshot. It was a letter, with the same number of words and paragraphs as the one sent by bhOndOO. The words were different, but the similarity was too self-evident.

IISc Life 2.0: Fanboy bhOndOO attends a conference

Benji reached IISc campus quite early. He was dressed formally in suits. He had a quick breakfast and reached the J.N. Tata auditorium before 9 AM. Many people had already turned up there. Near the registration desk, Prof. Sheru was standing with an anxious expression on his face. He was relieved to see Benji.

"Hey Benji!", Prof. Sheru asked, "When are the guests arriving? Who will receive them at the airport?" "Me, Sir!" replied Benji proudly. "They will be landing at 10:30. Soon I will be setting out to receive them and bring them over!" "Good!", said Prof. Sheru, "I hope things go smoothly. They are the star speakers in this conference!"

Perked up by the feeling of self-importance, Benji called up the driver of the car to check his whereabouts. "Reaching in 10 minutes, Sir", the driver replied. As BenJi was waiting at the gate for the car, someone patted him on the back. BenJi turned back, and was thoroughly surprised to see bhOndOO.

"Hey bhOndOO, what's up? When did you come to Bangalore?", BenJi asked. bhOndOO replied sheepishly, "Few minutes ago. To attend this conference."

BenJi was further surprised. "The conference is on Machine Learning. Since when did you get interested in that? I thought you left it forever after getting that D in Sheru Sir's course!"

"To hell with Machine Learning! I just wanted to see Dr. Leonard and Dr. Ruchi! They are the star couple in the research world right now, and I admire them so much!" said bhOndOO, glowing with excitement.

"Hmmm, OK", said BenJi, "You still have this fanboy syndrome, haan? Will you run behind them for autograph, the way you once tried to enter the cricket ground to get Sachin Tendulkar's autograph?" "Hey, that was 12 years back!", replied bhOndOO, "I am matured now!" "Really? Are you?", BenJi asked suspiciously.

"Hey BenJi", bhOndOO said sheepishly, "Are you going to receive them from the airport?" "Yes, of course I am!", replied BenJi proudly, "The Head of Nanohard Research India has deputed me for this task!" "Hey dude, one request", bhOndOO begged with the most coy voice he could manage, "Take me also with you na! I would like to meet them personally!" "Aah, and there comes our starstruck fanboy again!", mocked BenJi, "bhOndOO, this is not possible. They are the bigshots of Nanohard Research. You are not even from the company, it will be very unprofessional if you come there!" "Please, please, BenJi, you are my best friend na!" implored bhOndOO.

But by now, the car arrived. BenJi patted bhOndOO on the pack, "Chill, dude", got into the car, and sped away towards the airport. Disappointed, bhOndOO came back to the conference venue. The talks had already begun. Parallel sessions were going on in three different halls of the National Science Seminar Complex. bhOndOO had no knowledge or interest in Machine Learning, so he did not join any of the sessions. Instead, he entered the main hall of the J.N. Tata auditorium.

bhOndOO knew that the big event, namely the session by the "power couple" Dr. Leonard and Dr. Ruchi will be held there. But that was scheduled only at 4 PM. bhOndOO would have to wait for 6 hours. Right now, the huge hall was empty. bhOndOO decided that this was the best "waiting room" that he would get here. So he sat down there, opened his laptop, went to Youtube, and started watching various lectures by the power couple. Of course, he had no clue about the technical details that they presented. Instead, he just kept watching their style, their mannerisms, their mutual chemistry with much adulation. "One day, me and Shami will be a power couple like them!" he dreamt. And then he remembered that Shami is yet to respond to his latest proposal.

Meanwhile BenJi reached the airport, received the guests, and escorted them to IISc with great care. The "power couple" was taken to the Guest House, where they freshened up, had lunch, and took a brief rest. Finally, they were driven to the J.N.Tata Auditorium at 3:30 PM.

bhOndOO had gotten bored after sitting in the empty auditorium for two hours. So at lunchtime, he had come out. Since no one knew him here, he decided to use the cover of anonymity to his advantage. He wandered around with his lunch plate, trying to stand close to various girls who caught his eyes, and seeing if he could find a chance to break into the conversations they were having with their friends/companions. But whenever he managed to say anything, either no one heard him, or they looked at him blankly, then turned away and continued their conversations.

After about 10 attempts like this, bhOndOO gave up. He sat in the garden outside J. N. Tata Auditorium, playing with his phone. He had lost track of time. Suddenly, he saw a car arriving there, and from it came out BenJi, with a gentleman and a lady. They started coming straight towards him. "Who are these people?", bhOndOO thought, and then he froze for a few seconds as he realized who they were. When he unfroze, they were right in front of him. bhOndOO tried to give a big smile at them. But they did not notice him, and went past him to enter the auditorium with BenJi following.

bhOndOO ran behind them, trying hard to be noticed. As they reached the registration desk to pick up their identity badges and other stuff, bhOndOO ran and stood next to them, just in case he could chip in a word to them. Once Dr. Ruchi seemed to look towards him, and bhOndOO again tried to flash the best smile he could afford. It had no impact on her.

"Hey bhOndOO", BenJi came and called him away, "What are you doing? Don't behave like a fool around them!" "Please BenJi, introduce me to them na", bhOndOO implored. "Don't you get it, it will look very strange to introduce like that!", said BenJi, "If you want to talk to them, attend their session, and ask some smart questions. They will then be happy to talk to you!" "But I don't know Machine Learning!", bhOndOO moaned, "How will I ask?" "See, their talk will not assume any background of ML", BenJi assured him, "If you listen attentively, you will get it. Then you have to think of some smart questions, and ask them. " "I'll try", bhOndOO decided to take up the challenge.

bhOndOO entered the J.N. Tata Auditorium. It was, by now, filled up to almost 80% of its capacity. Still bhOndOO managed to find an empty seat on the very front row. Most of the people in this row were IISc professors, scientists from Nanohard Research, or other invited speakers. Prof. Sheru was the session chair. He was surprised to see bhOndOO sitting there in the front row, but said nothing.

The talk started. First Dr. Ruchi started, after that Dr. Leonard would take over. As Dr. Ruchi started her talk gently with cartoons and images, bhOndOO really enjoyed it. But gradually her intuitive ideas and examples turned into increasingly complex mathematical formulations. bhOndOO lost track within a few slides. Usually, when he doesn't follow a talk, bhOndOO either dozes off or manages to escape. But here, his aim was to capture Dr. Ruchi's attention. So he asked loudly, "Hi Mam, what is the 'x' variable there? And what does Dirichlet Process mean?". The professors and researchers sitting around him looked at him with a peculiar expression. Dr. Ruchi, however, patiently went back 3 slides to answer bhOndOO's question. BhOndOO was happy that she had at last seen him.

When she reached the next slide, he again shouted out, "What is the 'y' variable?" And after 2 more slides, "What exactly does Maximum-Likelihood mean?" Dr. Ruchi seemed puzzled how to handle this situation. She still had a lot of material to cover. Prof. Sheru, as if to reassure and appease everyone, told bhOndOO, "I think we can have this offline, in the interest of time!"

bhOndOO did not get the signal, and again asked "Can you please remind what does 'theta' stand for here?" after three more slides.

After some more time, Dr. Ruchi finished her part and Dr. Leonard took over. And three slides into his talk, bhOndOO asked, "Sir, how do you know that this formulation is novel? Is there a way to find that?" Dr. Leonard didn't understand the purpose or sense of the question. He asked back to bhOndOO, "Have you come across a similar formulation somewhere?" "No, I mean, there are so many books and papers right! Have you read all the books to check the novelty of this formulation? And in fact, can we use Machine Learning to classify a given formulation as novel or not?"

By now, Dr. Leonard had lost his cool. He tried hard to keep down the irritation in his voice, as he said, "I think it's novel! Have you see something like this elsewhere?" Prof. Sheru intervened quickly, "Let's take this offline!". Then he whispered to bhOndOO, "Please, don't interrupt with such questions! This is not an undergraduate level lecture!" BenJi appeared from somewhere, and implored bhOndOO, "Please bhOndOO, do not do this. The talk is stalling becaue of your stupid questions!"

"Ok, one last question to Dr. Leonard and Dr. Ruchi", said bhOndOO, "Can I ask?" "Yeah sure, one last question for now", said Dr. Leonard from the dais, "We are running out of time, and there is plenty that we wish to cover today!"

bhOndOO stood up to ask his last question. "Sir and Madam, can I please have a photo on the stage with both of you?" he asked. Dr. Leonard looked at him with wide eyes, and kept on looking in disbelief. Dr. Sheru slammed his hand on his forehead. Others on the front row too looked uncomfortable. But Dr. Ruchi responded, "Yes, please come up, we will have a photo. After that, we will finish the talk". Maybe she hoped this would prevent bhOndOO from interrupting again.

bhOndOO, in his excitement, tried to leap onto the stage. As he climbed, his foot got entangled on a cable on the stage floor. bhOndOO tripped, tried to balance himself, but slipped again and fell onto Dr. Leonard. He too lost balance and fell backward, onto Dr. Ruchi who had come ahead for the photo. bhOndOO found himself flat on the stage floor, with the "power couple" also fallen flat next to him.

IISc Life 2.0: bhOndOO drops by at IISc

On a sunny Sunday afternoon, bhOndOO arrived in Bangalore, after quite a while. Ever since he managed to graduate from IISc, he had never had the courage to come back to the deadly city where this deadly institute was located. The very thought of those horror days were enough to keep him as many kilometers away from it as he could.

But this occasion was special. After all, it was Gullu's wedding. With Shami, of course! Heck, no. Gullu is getting married to Aisha. Why would bhOndOO care? But wait, Shami would be attending the wedding too, so how can bhOndOO stay away? He has heard from BenJi that she is still single and searching.

At Yeshwantpur station, bhOndOO told the auto driver, "Bangalore Palace" As the auto found its way through the marketplace of Yeshwantpura, bhOndOO was thinking of what kind of a dude Gullu must have become, that he can afford a wedding at Bangalore Palace Ground! He wondered where he could afford to have his own wedding. Maybe in Nesara?? In case, that is, if he had some luck with Shami this time.

As the auto was speeding past IISc, bhOndOO was suddenly overcome with a wave of nostalgia. All the bad memories - of the scoldings by Prof. Krishnamurthy, of all dirty tricks by Gullu and co, his failures in pretty much every adventure he tried...came rushing back to his head. Yet, he had this irresistible desire to see all those places once more. Just once more.

bhOndOO gave up the auto at ATM gate. The security guard asked in highly accented Hindi, "Kisko milna h?" bhOndOO was taken aback. He did not know that visitors are no longer allowed just like that in the campus, as they were in his time. "Professor Krishnamurthy from CSA", he said impulsively, and immediately froze. What if the security guard now tries to call up the Prof to verify? To bhOndOO's relief, he didn't. But he asked, "Aj Sunday h, sir ayenge?" bhOndOO just nodded, knowing full well that Prof. Krishnamurthy never comes to office on weekends. But the guard took his photo, noted his phone number, and let him in without further questions.

With nervous steps, bhOndOO went inside. His first thought was to have a cup of tea in Prakruthi, so he walked there. Huh?? Where is Prakruthi?? Just some dilapidated ruins standing there. bhOndOO looked this way and that way, but found no sign of Prakruthi. Baffled, he trudged towards CSA.

On a sunday afternoon, the campus looked pretty much deserted. Hardly anyone was visible around. As bhOndOO reached the CSA main gate, he took a nervous look. Swadeshji was manning the desk, he knows every past, present and future student of CSA. He even knows how many papers bhOndOO managed to publish during his days, and how many times each paper got rejected before finally getting accepted. bhOndOO didn't want anyone to recognize him, so he avoided the main gate and entered through the unguarded back door on the Mechanical Engineering side.

For a while, bhOndOO walked around the empty corridors. He recalled every memory he had, of every corridor. "This was the place where Gullu had made fun of me, in presence of my classmates", he thought. At another corridor, he remembered that it was the place from which used to make desperate phone calls to Aisha every night, who never picked up. He walked to his old lab, and found it unlocked. Nervously, he peeped into it. On Sunday afternoon, there was just one student inside. That guy was busy with some coding, and had headphones on. He didn't seem to feel bhOndOO's presence. bhOndOO crept up to the place where he used to sit, and sat down there again. He tried to feel as if he had time-travelled to those days!

After a few minutes, he got up and came out of the lab. The corridor was empty and silent. He walked into the washroom and peed into his favourite urinal (yes, he had one) once again after several years. He peeped into the LITEC lab, where he used to watch movies on Sundays. One day, while watching a movie there..... bhOndOO quickly dropped that disturbing memory. He saw just one girl sitting inside LITEC with a book. Actually, she was sleeping on the chair with the book open. bhOndOO had a quick vision of himself walking in, and saying with a flourish, "Hi, I am bhOndOO. An alumnus of this department! And you?" But then he remembered the possible age difference between them, and quickly dropped the fancy.

He quietly walked towards the staircase. All faculty rooms, including that of Prof. Krishnamurthy, were closed, as they should be on Sundays. However, bhOndOO saw Prof. Bhimrao coming out of his room in the adjacent corridor. bhOndOO turned his head away, lest he be recognized, and pulled up his mask. Prof. Bhimrao may not even have known bhOndOO, but he didn't want to take a chance. For once, bhOndOO thanked Covid for providing everyone the option of masking up whenever in trouble.

bhOndOO came down the staircase and turned into the corridor to Computing Lab 2. Yes, this was the spot. His holy spot. Of course, this was the very spot where he had finally managed to propose to Shami. That night, as he managed to get those three words out with great difficulty, she had looked almost pitifully at him, and told him that she had no such feelings for him. bhOndOO cried silently as he remembered that incident.

As bhOndOO stood there sniffing and wiping the big fat tears, suddenly he felt a pat on his back. Startled, he turned back. And then, he leapt back three steps. Or so he thought. In reality, he just froze. His tears froze too on his cheek. It was Prof. Krishnamurthy! On a sunday afternoon, no less!

But Prof. Krishnamurthy was not surprised to see bhOndOO in the department. he did not even notice that bhOndOO was crying. Instead, he said "Hey bhOndOO, good that you are here. Please come over to my office, I have something to discuss."

bhOndOO followed Prof. Krishnamurthy to his office, like a robotic doll. He had no clue what to say. Upon reaching there, Prof. Krishnamurthy led him to the giant whiteboard on his wall. The board was full of block diagrams, algorithm complexity calculations, code snippets. Prof. Krishnamurthy said, "See bhOndOO, OOPSLA deadline is coming up. I was just thinking if we can put in a paper, based on this model." He pointed at a block diagram, "Can you code this up quickly, and run it on the benchmark datasets?"

Like an obedient little boy, bhOndOO sat down at his former advisor's laptop. As he struggled to remember the syntaxes he had not used in years, he forgot all about Gullu's wedding.