iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Sumeet Agarwal @lawraga.bsky.social · 20/03/2026

It's such a topsy-turvy world that it's hard to even know which hemisphere one is living in. Such a huge drop in temperature from the first half of March to the second was heretofore only known on the other side of the equator...

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Sumeet Agarwal @lawraga.bsky.social · 04/03/2026

A bird soars majestically over a monument of even greater majesty -- the only known final resting place of the Buddha. One of the oldest and holiest stupas in existence. Having had the fortune to visit many ancient Buddhist sites, this is among the ones that has moved me most.

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Sumeet Agarwal @lawraga.bsky.social · 02/03/2026

Finally made it to the ancient land of the Sakya kingdom — the land where the Buddha was born and spent the first 29 years of his life, as per tradition. This has been long on my bucket list… next stop Kapilavastu!

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Sumeet Agarwal @lawraga.bsky.social · 24/01/2026

At the 1982 Festival of India in London, the Prime Ministers of India and the UK. Perhaps two of the most powerful women ever (both of whom, as it happens, studied at Somerville College, Oxford). [Archival photo on display at Swaraj Bhawan, Allahabad]

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Sumeet Agarwal @lawraga.bsky.social · 26/11/2025

Out of all the failed committees in the history of committee-formation, the Delhi Pollution Control Committee deserves a special medal for the spectacularness of its failure.

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Sumeet Agarwal @lawraga.bsky.social · 24/11/2025

Soon to be one of Delhi's hottest cultural attractions. The replica of the gateway (torana) from Sanchi indicates that this building is about to take on the role of a stupa -- i.e., a burial mound and shrine to venerate the mortal remains of a saintly person. Here, that will be the Buddha himself.

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Sumeet Agarwal @lawraga.bsky.social · 29/03/2025

After a detailed discussion on the Turing test and Chinese room papers, I asked my grad-level CogSci class whom they tended to agree with more, Turing or Searle. A clear majority, some 3/4ths or 4/5ths, said Searle. And these are young, well-informed folks who regularly use ChatGPT et al.!

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Sumeet Agarwal @lawraga.bsky.social · 29/03/2025

Very interesting analogy about the nature of mathematical ideas and cognition. From @davidbessis.bsky.social's recent book, 'Mathematica'.

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Sumeet Agarwal @lawraga.bsky.social · 28/12/2024

The Site Museum at Phanigiri (Suryapet distt., Telangana) opened earlier this year. Its collection of limestone sculpture and inscriptions from the 2nd—4th century hilltop Buddhist stupa/monastery at this site is just mind blowing, both in its quality and its state of preservation.

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Sumeet Agarwal @lawraga.bsky.social · 25/12/2024

There's probably nothing about my old Oxford college I miss more than this. The combined power of the music, the setting, the sense of community, and the festive spirit was just sublime...

youtube.com

Christmas Carol Service - Thursday 5 December - from Merton College Chapel, Oxford

YouTube video by MertonCollegeChoir

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Sumeet Agarwal @lawraga.bsky.social · 24/12/2024

A striking instance of the utter neglect of Buddhist history and archaeology in India: artifacts from one of the most important recent finds of a major Buddhist monastery, at Phanigiri in Telangana, are tucked away in an obscure case in the Telangana State Museum which almost no one visits.

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Reposted by Sumeet Agarwal

Very British Problems @soverybritish.bsky.social · 20/12/2024

I’m confidently leaving all my workload until January as if that’s months away rather than… *checks calendar*… in a week and a half 🥲

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Reposted by Sumeet Agarwal

Martin Wattenberg @wattenberg.bsky.social · 16/12/2024

open letter calling for a 6-month pause on metaphors for AI

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Sumeet Agarwal @lawraga.bsky.social · 16/12/2024

Sunset over the Vasai Creek, crossing from the island to the mainland. Highlight of an evening train out of Mumbai…

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Sumeet Agarwal @lawraga.bsky.social · 16/12/2024

Steel girders at Bombay Central built by Dorman Long & Co. of Middlesbrough, England – the same steelmaker which built the famous Sydney Harbour Bridge!

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Sumeet Agarwal @lawraga.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

I expected the Mathura Museum to be good; but it hugely exceeded my expectations. Just a spectacular collection of ancient (especially Buddhist) sculpture. What an incredible hub of Buddhism Mathura must have been in the Kushan era…

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Reposted by Sumeet Agarwal

Helen De Cruz @helendecruz.net · 17/02/2024

There was a discussion on AI with experts at my uni. The discussion already began inauspiciously, "AI is a tool, we no longer use horse and cart. We use cars. Cars have downsides, but we can't do without them. It'll be the same with AI." I think cars are a disaster for humanity--on so many levels

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Sumeet Agarwal @lawraga.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

A short thread on some of the ways in which LLMs are being tested and benchmarked. It's been quite striking (and depressing) to see how the exam-centric nature of the human education and assessment systems we've created has increasingly crept into the AI world.

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Sumeet Agarwal @lawraga.bsky.social · 26/08/2024

Hasn't received a lot of attention in the media, but looks like there's a stunning new Buddhist archaeological site near Hyderabad which has recently opened up to visitors. It's gone right to the top of my bucket list...

indianexpress.com

A potential UNESCO heritage site, why Phanigiri in Telangana is central to tracing region’s Buddhist past

The recent excavations at Phanigiri unearthed a horde of 3,750 led coins dating back to the Ikshvaku period (300 CE-400 CE).

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Reposted by Sumeet Agarwal

the Mountain Goats @themountaingoats.bsky.social · 26/08/2024

Have finally coded a Small Language model. Responds to any input with “wow, that’s a lot of words” and then shuts down

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Reposted by Sumeet Agarwal

Michael Gisiger 🦋 @gisiger.eurosky.social · 26/08/2024

Stephen Wolfram thinks we need philosophers working on big questions around #AI: “The question is what do you think about, and that’s a different kind of question, and it’s a question that’s found more in traditional #philosophy than it is in the traditional #STEM.” techcrunch.com/2024/08/25/s...

techcrunch.com

Stephen Wolfram thinks we need philosophers working on big questions around AI | TechCrunch

As AI developers and others start to think more deeply about how computers and people intersect, Stephan Wolfram says it is becoming a much more of a philosophical exercise

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Sumeet Agarwal @lawraga.bsky.social · 21/08/2024

Never mind the laws of Newton or Maxwell. In modern academia, only one law rules the roost: Goodhart's.

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