Recent content in Home on Arun Tejasvi Chaganty
Shipping AI products is weird. The model isn’t just a component—it’s the user experience. Your users don’t interact with buttons and forms; they interact with a black box that sometimes works brilliantly and sometimes fails in baffling ways. Over the past few years, I’ve shipped AI features at two startups: Code completion and editing tools at Augment Code and customer…
For the past two decades, benchmarks have been the backbone of AI progress. Capability benchmarks like MMLU, SWE-Bench or HLE have served as proxies for foundation model 'IQ.' But they fall short when it comes to evaluating how well AI will perform in your product. I've spent much of my career building and critiquing evaluations, and in this post, I'll share key lessons on designing an evaluation…
The chaos game is simple--- starting from a random point, mark the next point midway to a random vertex of a triangle--- yet generates a fascinating fractal: the Sierpinski triangle. In this post, I explain why through proofs and interactive figures.
CoNLL and EMNLP , two top-tier natural language processing conferences, were held in Hong Kong last month. A large contingent of the Square AI team, myself included, attended and our fantastic intern, Justin Dieter, presented our work on a new contextual language generation task: mimic rephrasals . Despite being a regular conference attendee, I was surprised by the sheer quantity and quality of…
When you're trying to detect or identify an event with a machine learning system, the metrics you really care about are precision and recall. While measuring precision tells you _where your model made a mistake_, measuring recall can tell you _where your model can improve_. In this post, we'll look at how to triple the data efficiency of estimating recall in practice using an…
We're witnessing an exciting boom in the subfield of natural language generation (NLG), with more than 150 related papers published at top conferences in just the last year! Unfortunately, it's incredibly hard to compare these different methods in a meaningful way as many automatic evaluations have consistently been shown to poorly correlate with human judgment. In this paper, we'll ask if…
I was sitting at the corner of Cowper and University, when a red Corolla pulled in, windows down A black man shouted, 'Yo, where's EPA, man?' I looked into his eyes, ignoring his smirk. Where's East Palo Alto? It's in your face. It's in the dents of your car It's in the backseat where you're clothes are Because some yuppies bought your house for a rent that's twice your monthly income. Where's…
It's a Friday evening, when you hear, the careless whispers Looking around, bewildered, you see but a cat's whiskers Turning 'round the bend, to find a voice you swear you'd heard, The street is empty, save for a fence and its lonely lonesome bird Walking solemn, walking slight, a crackling cackle gives you a fright Yet, behind you there is naught a sight? Turn around, whence you came, sprint a…
With neither a whimper nor a bang, but the steady accumulation of 'stuff' Encroaching on all things. With a pang, surrounded on four sides, we cannot rebuff and must accept at long last: A marriage is happening and is already almost past. For the joyous occasion of my brother’s marriage.
Hark ye the fall! And minutes drop from high They twirl and twang as they gently settle and quietly amongst their friends rustle and remember till winds blow them aside.
These white shoes were a terrible idea; they didn’t stay white for long. Look, how mud encroaches from the sides, advancing its hidden campaign every day. Soon, I will be surrounded, and with no Russia in this young rubber to keep wear at bay, it’ll be an easy victory. But while they last, these shoes feel good. And they came cheap. 4 minutes into this run and I can already see the…
How many linear measurements do you need to (efficiently) recover a low rank matrix? What about a sparse vector or an orthogonal matrix? Given that we know our object of interest has some ‘structure’, can we answer this question in a general manner? In this article, I will show you one approach to do so; regression using atomic norms. Most of the material I will cover was presented in…
(Dedicated to a Monsieur Le Coq) You stand here, solemn, silent, by my side, Whispering softly of a time gone by; The waves of could’ves flow in with the tide, The wind murmuring should’ves with a sigh Somewhere in time, unknowing, unheeding, uncaring, it was I who jumped ship, making instead, a choice of warmth temporary, more comforting then than this, the narrow river of reason you…
There is, bubbling inside me, Something I must tell you. But you seem busy; I’ll wait, no worries, It’s just a matter of timing, you see, And patient waiting is no stranger to me. What needed doing is finally done, The ships have set sail. In the twilight, You seem tired, justifiably so. I’ll wait, no worries, The bubbles can bubble over - Nothing I haven’t handled before…
“Is it not love that knows how to make smooth things rough and rough things smooth?” – Vikram Seth, An Equal Music Honestly, I never imagined reading Vikram Seth - I’ve had a lot of people, including my mother, criticise him, particularly for “Suitable Boy”. Luckily, Amrutha Whatsherlastnameits convinced me otherwise, and I’m rather grateful for that. I…
Let me admit that I have somewhat of a crush on Haruki Murakami. I so wish I were capable of writing this review in his metaphorical meter and cast upon you such a spell that you would be compelled to question your existence without having read Murakami. He is simply a fantastic story teller, and even though his stories have no real point, no true conclusion, you are drawn in and captured. He…
Many would have probably either seen the movie, or the animated series on TV (I loved both); the book is slightly different, but totally worth reading (I have to thank Sir Varun Joshi for the recommendation). Written by an ex-army man, this is a thrill ride in book form. Packed with good comraderie, honour, heroism and all the other good stuff, the book is an excellent stimulant, and will leave…
I am simultaneously impressed and depressed by this book. On the one hand, it is almost blasphemous in its mortal depiction of gods, yet in a way that seems to underlie a believable reality that I could respect. Sadly, its poor rendition left me wanting. The series by Amish has been well touted, after all, it’s not unlike a Chetan Bhagat story - simple, drab, yet extremely easy to read.
The referee’s whistle blew; we started moving forward, ready to win this game already. For the first time in as long as I can remember, Jam(una) was poised to win gold at inter-hostel basketball (Schroeter); winning gold in basketball would seal the deal on winning the Schroeter cup. It was a dream I wanted too much to believe it could be true. We were up against Saras(wathi), a hostel with…
Admittedly, not the most original of titles. As some may know, I’m inclined towards academic research, and have been admitted to PhD programmes at MIT, CMU and Stanford. So, grabbing hold of this golden opportunity to evade work, I spent the 2 weeks visiting these places, meeting professors and students and generally having a ball of a time. The trip happened in early March, so this post is…
This post is a brief overview of an approach I took to derive variational inference for the Correlated Topic Model, before realizing it had been done before.
So this is a “non-fiction” article (insomuch as is possible, given the topic, apocalypses) I wrote for our intra-hostel creative writing event. We placed 2nd, so I presume it had a non-negative contribution towards that result. I would like to point out at the offset that I am not a proponent of antiestablishmentarianism 1 , and my own views on society are relatively over-optimistic. I…
Last Sunday (because I’m terribly slow with these things), I ran my first authentic 10K 1 , in roughly 58 minutes. It felt great. I had the most “flow” I’ve ever had while running, and my infernal (and eternal) cold shut up for once. I’ve long tried to associate my running with summoning the will to achieve something (usually my research work). I certainly hoped that…
It’s been quite a long time since I posted anything, and indeed since I’ve coherently expressed myself in a non-technical format (well, I wonder if this counts, given its lack of coherency). Here goes to creaking rusty joints, in the name of my recent loss of self-expression: Whilst the sky bleeds blue’s true hue, Could I colour the world yellow? Would the pigments blend softly…
I walk on a path of leaves, a path lined with trees withered. The airs of self-image drift into the breeze, leading softly into a storm weathered. In a world devoid of black and white, autumn grey makes for ironic sense. Behind, ahead; comparisons bite, poisoned with debilitating innocence. I walk on a path of leaves, Beneath me they cackle with laughter.
Every now and then, it hits you that all this technological advance mumbo-jumbo that we’ve been doing is actually improving people’s lives . Today was one such day. My uncle and his wife are both unfortunately deaf and dumb, though their daughter (my cousin) thankfully is not. When taking said uncle to pick his wife up from the airport today, he showed me, with absolute joy, how they…
Here is my 3rd place “winning” entry for Saarang Creative Writing (posting here just for the sake of it, and because something reminded me of the title). It’s a bit of an abstract piece, and admittedly a bit shabby here and there. Commentary shall follow at the end Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost… But Some Are “Have you heard about the murder case?”…
foss.in/2009. Nimhans Convention Center, Bangalore, Dec. 1-5, 2009 . Yep, a month ago (well, atleast it’s better than a year ago). I attended my first foss.in in 2007, and it seriously changed my life. I can’t say quite the same for this edition, but it was interesting. The overwhelming focus of this year’s foss.in was open hardware - something I’m really close to. The best…
This is a historical post about generators in Python (when that was still a new and exciting feature) and how to achieve the same in C .
A recent discussion with a friend, Ramya, on the topic of Computational Creativity got me thinking. For sure my views will change in the course of time, but at least I would have penned down - and safely stored - my initial views that I may come back in a month or so and chuckle at my naivety. A nice question that Ramya asked was not the standard “Could computer programs even be capable of…
IIT Madras hosted it’s second hackfest last weekend, during it’s annual techfest, Shaastra. The hackfest was phenomenally successful, with 6 projects running concurrently producing about 7-8 patches in total. Within our second instalment itself, we’ve probably established ourselves as the most productive student-run hackfest in India, something we are extremely proud of 1 . The…
This weekend, CocoD and I embarked on an adventurous trail deep into the Tam heartland to India’s second largest lagoon, Pulicat Lake . Soaking in the sights, sounds (and smells - good god we wish we didn’t), the two of us boldly proved our manliness by cycling the whole of the 62.8 km (ref. Google Maps), on the ultimate chick magnet, the Tam Cycle. The two of us also boldly proved our…
It’s been far too long since I came up with decent material to put up here. Rather than let my blog die, the organic creature that it is, I thought I might as well look deep in my archives of half-baked articles and post something from there. This is one such article that I have no clue why I haven’t published as yet. I wrote it loooong ago, around the time of my rant about PlasmaPong…
There is a fantastic open-source turn-based strategy game that goes by the name of “The Battle for Wesnoth”. It has some excellent code, celebrity hackers (rusty and esr), engaging game play and pretty good graphics. It’s goal was simplicity in design, and richness in game play. Inspiring as it is, I found it to be an anchor for a question that’s been mulling in my head for…
I’ve recently watched Randy Pauch’s last lecture (I know, I’m behind the times). It was amazingly inspirational, and couldn’t have been delivered better. It also got me thinking about my own childhood dreams and I realised that if I don’t pen them down somewhere, I’ll forget them or manipulate them. So here’s a list of my childhood dreams (as best as I…
It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything - prime culprit being work. For about two months now, I’ve been hacking on Windows (gasp), and I’d like to share my experiences. Since I am under a NDA (pfft), I can’t give more details than I was working with the Windows Filtering Platform and had to write a “driver” to do some packet inspection in kernel…
Introduction For quite a while I’ve wanted to share my trials, tribulations, and final wonder for programming, and how it’s opened a plethora of insights into how I perceive the world to work . You might question the utter T-ness of such a discussion, and indeed I’ve been known to overdo many a topic. I’m probably doing the same for this one, but I can’t really help…
This weekend I took a mildly irrational trip all the way from San Diego to Hanover (near Boston) to meet a old friend of mine, Tarang Agarwal. We met each other at Canadian Academy, in Kobe, Japan in 1999 I think. We were really close friends, but in 2000 I moved to India, (and shortly thereafter, he moved to Cincinnati I think). And this was the first time in the 9 years hence we met.
Technically, it’s 3 weekends into summer, but I consider this my “first”, since it’s the only one where I’ve had time for myself. A brief summary ensues. San Diego Beach This Saturday, we managed to get ourselves down to the beach (just barely mind you). Before I jump ahead, “ourselves” is Nachiketas (from IIT KGP), Gauri Joshi (from IIT Bombay), Kishore…
Gee whiz, it’s been 2 weeks since the end semester exams finished. And perhaps a half a week since the semester actually ended (thanks to the current CSE setup at IIT Madras). And so much to update on. The Semester Firstly, the end semester exams went off without too much of a hitch. They were definitely the most “peaced-out” end semesters I’ve written, though I ended up…
A light trickle, bathed in sunlight, sparkles Flowing silently through the pebbles, Dip... Dip... Counting time as it falls A light trickle, bathed in sunlight sparkle A gentle breeze, enchanted with fragrances Gliding gracefully through the leaves, Shh... Unheeded it drifts on, oh time, A gentle breeze, enchanted with fragrances An undulating wave, ever-steady in it's to-fro, Gently beating…
The flotsam and jetsam your life's left lying The many paths you wish you'd taken Some less travelled, some more trodden, Those layers of dust have set thick The apologies left unsaid; universal and undirected The hearts hurt, the grief begotten Every moment a little bit of you crumbles away Something you can never put together again The unambitious pursuit of ambition, Blind stumbling of one so…
There is a temple down the road from where I live, 1 left and 2 rights. Every Friday I make my tiny pilgrimage To it's equally tiny containment of solace. My mother sends me to feed the cows, But I stay through the evening I do not know why. An island in the violent waters of the urban suburb. A protector of our 'Samskrutum'; a social herb. I am pulled by this vortex in my life's turbulence; By…
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain. While the litany , (devised by Frank Herbert, I take no credit), was intended to tide one…
I found a story I wrote way back in 10th I think. I like the style, and I find it comical how introvert-ish I was back then. Brings back some vivid memories and feelings. I still can’t deny that the human race is way too complicated and artificial for it’s own good. Untitled1 As he gazed up into the sky, he contemplated. Life had been good to him. He had whatever he wanted, a secure…
So prime numbers are useful. I found that I needed to generate a prime number for a hash table (details of which should be posted soon. If all goes well that is…). And I decided to come up with an algorithm to generate that prime number. Clearly stating the problem: “Find the smallest prime greater than n” The simplest way of generating primes is of course using Eurothenes'…
Once when the heart did flutter, Every moment passing only to draw us closer To glance upon you, my thoughts stuttered, To breath you in, so refreshing, yet so dear. As you moved through me, a warmth filled my chest I was at your every beck and call I swore I would withstand the test A test of loss. I failed, and now I fall. A craving left unsatisfied You have moved forward, without heed to my…
As always, I’m a week late on this post. Shaastra, our annual techfest wrapped up on the 5th of October. This last week has been terribly hectic with all of our teachers catching up on lost time. We handled three distinct “events”, namely a mini-FOSS conference, a HackFest, and of course the VC with Guido van Rossum. Looking back, we probably could have handled things better, but…
This is my entry for Shaastra’s Online Science Fiction Writing contest (Shaastra is my college’s annual technical festival). It was judged by Cory Doctrow, and won first place. I am estatic. In retrospect, I’ve noticed several places where I really screwed up my “flow” and lost “coherency” (quotes because I can’t exactly define either) and other…
Sure, it isn’t the most awe-inspiring of events, but then again you don’t get to talk to the Guido everyday. Besides which, a considerable amount of effort and FOSS pimpage went into this. The Guido, i.e. Guido van Rossum , will be doing a video conference (VC) at our annual techfest ( Shaastra ) this year. Because of certain scheduling issues, Guido will be doing the talk from home,…