Indian sacred texts and the logic of computer ethics - By Manohar Bhat

 Indian sacred texts and the logic of computer ethics

The Indian sacred texts of the Vedas have been studied for millennia. But now, for the first time in history, computer scientists in Vienna analyse them by applying the methods of mathematical logic. This gives Sanskritists new insights and can even settle philosophical disputes which are more than one or two thousand years old. On the other hand, it helps computer scientists to develop reasoning tools to deal with deontic concepts (such as prohibitions and obligations). Such tools are enormously important if we want to implement ethics in artificial intelligence – for instance if a self-driving car has to make ethical decisions in case of an accident.

Applying the Laws of Logic to Ancient Texts

"The Vedas are a large body of ancient Sanskrit texts, some of which contain very clear moral statements – such as 'one should not harm any living being'", says Agata Ciabattoni from the Institute of Logic and Computation at TU Wien. She is leading the research project, in close collaboration with Elisa Freschi, Sanskritist from the Austrian Academy of Science.

There is a philosophical school originated in ancient India in the last centuries BCE, called Mīmāṃsā, which uses a rigorous approach to analyse the obligations and prohibitions mentioned in the Vedas. For many centuries, Mīmāṃsā scholars have formulated rules to draw conclusions from premises and to resolve apparent contradictions. "This is actually closely related with what logicians like us are doing," says Agata Ciabattoni. "We can formalise such rules in a language that can also be understood by computers."

There is, for example, an old dispute about the "Śyena sacrifice," a sacrifice in the Vedas meant to kill one's enemies. How can this be reconciled with the rule not to harm any living being? "For a Hindu, the Vedas are absolutely correct, so there cannot be any contradiction," says Agata Ciabattoni. In the 7th century, Prabhākara, an Indian philosopher in the Mīmāṃsā tradition resolved this problem by applying several rules from the Vedas in a logically rather complicated way. Various scholars did not believe that his reasoning was correct, and this dispute has been going on for centuries.

Agata Ciabattoni and her team closely collaborated with Sanskritists to translate the Mīmāṃsā rules and the Vedic laws into mathematical formulae – and they could prove that Prabhākara had been right all along. Given the prescriptions of the Vedas, Prabhākaras logic was flawless. Mathematical logic settles an old philosophical dispute.

Building a Logic System for Ethics

"For us, this was a first proof of concept that we can really learn something new by combining Indology and formal logic," says Agata Ciabattoni. "But ultimately, we want to achieve much more. We want to understand how to formulate with mathematical precision useful logics dealing with prohibitions and obligations."

Classical logic deals with statements which are either true or false, and it provides rules we can use to combine true statements, creating new statements which are also true. This is how mathematics works: if we start out with something true and follow a certain set of rules, the end result will still be true. But this kind of logic is not useful if we want to deal with ethics. "When we are dealing with prohibitions and obligations, we are not interested in what is true or false, but in what we should or should not do," says Ciabattoni. "Therefore, a completely different kind of logic is required, called deontic logic. Just like classical logic, it can be expressed as mathematical formulae which allow us to unequivocally prove whether or not a certain line of reasoning is correct."

There have been attempts to create such a "deontic logic," but so far the success has been limited. "We are confident that working with the Vedas and the school of Mīmāṃsā will greatly help us to understand how deontic logic can work," says Ciabattoni. "These ancient Sanskrit texts provide us with many arguments, carefully analysed for centuries, on which we can test our mathematical formulae."

The Ethics of Self-Driving Cars

Such a deontic logic could be used to teach ethics to computers. A machine could be given a certain set of obligations and prohibitions, and following certain rules it could then determine automatically, whether or not a certain kind of behaviour is acceptable or not. "Consider a self-driving car during a traffic accident," says Agata Ciabattoni. "Let's assume that a crash is inevitable, and somebody will definitely get hurt – but the car has to decide whom to harm and whom to spare." A general rule such as "do not harm anybody" will not help in this case. Much like in the ancient Vedas, certain rules have to be combined to arrive at the logical solution. And perhaps such machine decisions will even be more ethical and beneficial to us humans as a human decision would be.


Courtesy: Vienna University of Technology

Ghatika Yantra – The Ancient Indian Water Clock - By Manohar Bhat

 In Ancient India religious practices and beliefs often lead to particular discoveries or inventions. In all the religions that took their birth in India, use to follow some particular times of the day to perform their religious rituals at particular times of the day. But they had no reliable way of telling the time.

A simple stick in the ground can be used to create a sun dial, but what do you do when there is no sun, such as on a cloudy day. Ancient Indians devised a different type of clock, one that is based on water, called as Ghatika Yantra.

Indians had divided day and night into 60 parts, each of which is called a ghari. Moreover the night and day are each divided into four parts each of which is called pahar.

In all important towns, a group of men called ghariyalis were appointed to measure time. To measure time a vessel with a hole at the bottom was place over another big vessel containing water. When the vessel with the hole was filled with water, they used to strike the ghariyal, a thick brass disc hung at a high place with a mallet. This indicated a certain period of time.

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Water clocks, along with sundials, are likely to be the oldest time-measuring instruments. Where and when they were first invented is not known, and given their great antiquity it may never be. The bowl-shaped outflow is the simplest form of a water clock and is known to have existed in India, China, Babylon and in Egypt thousands of years ago.

Historians suggest that pots excavated from Mohenjo daro might have been used as water clocks; they are tapered at the bottom, have a hole on the side. The use of the water clock in ancient India is also mentioned in the Atharvaveda from the 2nd millennium BCE.

The Chinese traveler who visited India during the 7th century A.D had given an account of how this water clock worked at Nalanda, a Buddhist university. At Nalanda four hours a day and four hours at night were measured by a water clock, which consisted of a copper bowl holding two large floats in a larger bowl filled with water. The bowl was filled with water from a small hole at its bottom; it sank when completely filled and was marked by the beating of a drum at daytime. The amount of water added varied with the seasons and this clock was operated by the students of the university.

The description of a water clock in astrologer Varahimira’s Pancasiddhantika adds further detail to the account given in the Suryasiddhanta. The description given by mathematician Brahmagupta in his work Brahmasphutasiddhanta matches with that given in the Suryasiddhanta.    

- Courtecy: themysteriousindia

India is capable to soften the pandemic’s impact on the economy and revive growth

After a COVID-19 induced lockdown of over two months leading to a contraction in the current financial year, the Indian economy is expected to rebound with a sharp growth rate of 9.5 per cent next year, says the Fitch Ratings. Citing the report of Fitch Ratings, Vice-Chairman of NITI Aayog Rajiv Kumar took to Twitter to apprise on the same. It is important to note here that 9.5% will come against a lower base given the Covid crisis in the ongoing fiscal.

India can stage a relatively rapid recovery despite a floundering global economy:

The government’s stimulus package, at Rs 20 lakh Crore, is substantial enough in size. This can  address not just immediate relief for the lockdown- and pandemic-stricken economy but also reversal of the slowdown that had preceded Covid-19. It is possible for India to offer relief to the nearly 6.4 crore production units, of which only about one crore are registered under the goods and services tax (GST).

 
India runs a current account deficit and growth does not depend critically on exports. Energy, other commodities, machine goods, planes, ships, entire companies and technology can be fished out cheap from a world in a slump.

Capital will be cheap, too, if India can minimise the risk that accompanies its deployment in India.

The above is possibile  into material reality if bold political decisions are taken. The economics is straightforward enough. Without political courage, the stimulus would be a wasteful exercise. The basis of prosperity is to strictly avoid  sectarian politics for social cohesion.

Revival:

 

Indian business have to make money primarily from efficient running of their business, rather than from setting up new projects and making over-valued acquisitions. It would improve the integrity of accounting and corporate governance.

 

Stop patronising power theft and power giveaways, which bankrupt the power sector, denying it 30-40% of potential revenue, create bad loans on bank books and deprive rural areas of daytime supply of stable power supply, without which an agro-processing industry cannot take shape.

Replace inflated support prices for specific crops and subsidised inputs with investment in infrastructure, including irrigation, land consolidation and logistical linkage to markets, remove restrictions on farmers’ marketing freedom and give them income support.

This will end piling up of grain with the Food Corporation, shift sugarcane from arid Maharashtra to the floodplains of Bihar. Horticulture would bloom, to feed a new crop of agro-processing industry in rural areas, generating new income for farmers and structural change in the rural economy.

How can micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) that have had zero revenue for more than six weeks but have had to pay interest, rent and wage costs, tide over the crisis? They need liquidity to stay afloat. Bankers have to be encouraged / forced to unlock the liquidity to the MSME sector very liberally - with out fear of terrifying accountability to the decision makers in the bank - by way of easy and cheap & adequqte additional loans with comfortable repayment options.

Begin with the money they are due. Large entities, including the government and public sector units, to whom MSMEs make supplies, do not release payment for months on end.

Fixing this is the first step. All companies have been mandated to list on the factoring platform, Trade Receivables Discounting System, where suppliers, buyers and financiers are registered, suppliers list their invoices raised on the large firms, the large firms authenticate these invoices and financiers take over the receivables, pay the suppliers their invoice amount, less a discount that reflects the credit risk of the large buyer.

Vibrant Bond Market :

Large companies can borrow from banks, or issue bonds. India must create a vibrant bond market, kicked off by RBI or by a special purpose vehicle (or several SPVs) whose bond issuance is mopped up by RBI.

Let the SPV subscribe to bonds issued by companies and NBFCs that fund MSMEs. NBFCs can, in turn, offer loans to MSMEs or pick up their bond offerings and trade in them.

Drop regulatory restrictions against trade in subprime bonds. Let the mutual funds, banks and other investors trade in all kinds of bonds, across the risk-reward spectrum, aided by derivatives to mitigate risk. SIDBI’s venture arm could offer equity.

Will industry find demand for its output? It would, in completion of stalled projects worth lakhs of crores and huge fresh investment in healthcare and physical infrastructure, including new, planned, dense towns that urbanising India desperately needs.

Where will the Rs 20 lakh crore come from? The state can borrow from the domestic market and RBI, without fretting about fiscal deficits. Deflation, not inflation, is the worry now.

An SPV can raise sovereign-guaranteed debt, besides equity, from global capital markets in desperate search of positive returns. If the capital is spent so as to raise relative productivity, the rupee would appreciate, derisking servicing the capital.

There is also good news from one more international rating agency Standard & Poor ( S & P) that India’s sovereign credit rating is retained at BBB(minus) with a stable look for the 13^th year in a row. It also pointed out that ongoing economic reforms, if executed well, should keep the country’s growth rate ahead of peers.

We're Getting Closer to the Quantum Internet, But What Is It? - By Manohar Bhat

 Back in February 2020, scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Chicago revealed that they had achieved a quantum entanglement — in which the behavior of a pair two tiny particles becomes linked, so that their states are identical — over a 52-mile (83.7 kilometer) quantum-loop network in the Chicago suburbs.

You may be wondering what all the fuss is about, if you're not a scientist familiar with quantum mechanics — that is, the behavior of matter and energy at the smallest scale of reality, which is peculiarly different from the world we can see around us.

But the researchers' feat could be an important step in the development of a new, vastly more powerful version of the internet in the next few decades. Instead of the bits that today's network uses, which can only express a value of either 0 or 1, the future quantum internet would utilize qubits of quantum information, which can take on an infinite number of values. (A quibit is the unit of information for a quantum computer; it's like a bit in an ordinary computer).

That would give the quantum internet way more bandwidth, which would make it possible to connect super-powerful quantum computers and other devices and run massive applications that simply aren't possible with the internet we have now.

"A quantum internet will be the platform of a quantum ecosystem, where computers, networks, and sensors exchange information in a fundamentally new manner where sensing, communication, and computing literally work together as one entity, " explains David Awschalom via email. He's a spintronics and quantum information professor in the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago and a senior scientist at Argonne, who led the quantum-loop project.
Explaining the Quantum Internet

So why do we need this and what does it do? For starters, the quantum internet is not a replacement of the regular internet we now have. Rather it would be a complement to it or a branch of it. It would be able to take care of some of the problems that plague the current internet. For instance, a quantum internet would offer much greater protection from hackers and cybercriminals. Right now, if Alice in New York sends a message to Bob in California over the internet, that message travels in more or less a straight line from one coast to the other. Along the way, the signals that transmit the message degrade; repeaters read the signals, amplify and correct the errors. But this process allows hackers to "break in" and intercept the message.

However, a quantum message wouldn't have that problem. Quantum networks use particles of light photons to send messages which are not vulnerable to cyberattacks. Instead of encrypting a message using mathematical complexity, says Ray Newell, a researcher at Los Alamos National Laboratory, we would rely upon the peculiar rules of quantum physics. With quantum information, "you can't copy it or cut it in half, and you can't even look at it without changing it." In fact, just trying to intercept a message destroys the message, as Wired magazine noted. That would enable encryption that would be vastly more secure than anything available today.

"The easiest way to understand the concept of the quantum internet is through the concept of quantum teleportation," Sumeet Khatri, a researcher at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, says in an email. He and colleagues have written a paper about the feasibility of a space-based quantum internet, in which satellites would continually broadcast entangled photons down to Earth's surface, as this Technology Review article describes.

"Quantum teleportation is unlike what a non-scientist's mind might conjure up in terms of what they see in sci-fi movies, " Khatri says. "In quantum teleportation, two people who want to communicate share a pair of quantum particles that are entangled. Then, through a sequence of operations, the sender can send any quantum information to the receiver (although it can't be done faster than light speed, a common misconception). This collection of shared entanglement between pairs of people all over the world essentially constitutes the quantum internet. The central research question is how best to distribute these entangled pairs to people distributed all over the world. "

Once it's possible to do that on a large scale, the quantum internet would be so astonishingly fast that far-flung clocks could be synchronized about a thousand times more precisely than the best atomic clocks available today, as Cosmos magazine details. That would make GPS navigation vastly more precise than it is today, and map Earth's gravitational field in such detail that scientists could spot the ripple of gravitational waves. It also could make it possible to teleport photons from distant visible-light telescopes all over Earth and link them into a giant virtual observatory.

"You could potentially see planets around other stars, " says Nicholas Peters, group leader of the Quantum Information Science Group at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
It also would be possible for networks of super-powerful quantum computers across the globe to work together and create incredibly complex simulations. That might enable researchers to better understand the behavior of molecules and proteins, for example, and to develop and test new medications.

It also might help physicists to solve some of the longstanding mysteries of reality. "We don't have a complete picture of how the universe works," says Newell. "We have a very good understanding of how quantum mechanics works, but not a very clear picture of the implications. The picture is blurry where quantum mechanics intersects with our lived experience."
Challenges of Building the Quantum Internet

But before any of that can happen, researchers have to figure out how to build a quantum internet, and given the weirdness of quantum mechanics, that's not going to be easy. "In the classical world you can encode information and save it and it doesn't decay, " Peters says. "In the quantum world, you encode information and it starts to decay almost immediately. "

Another problem is that because the amount of energy that corresponds to quantum information is really low, it's difficult to keep it from interacting with the outside world. Today, "in many cases, quantum systems only work at very low temperatures," Newell says. "Another alternative is to work in a vacuum and pump all the air out. "

In order to make a quantum internet function, Newell says, we'll need all sorts of hardware that hasn't been developed yet. So it's hard to say at this point exactly when a quantum internet would be up and running, though one Chinese scientist has envisioned that it could happen as soon as 2030.


Source: Iternet, Courtecy: Patrick J. Kiger

Coronavirus: RBI’s monetary statement, impact on business, households :

 

 Business enterprises devise their strategy based on optimism and economic conditions. Although these decisions and actions have to be pragmatic, there is always a hope for achieving more. In pursuit of these goals, many enterprises would have committed to make large investments, recruited workforce, spent on automation and offered attractive buying terms to its customers. Under normal conditions these are appreciated as aggressive strategies. However, today world is faced with two significant challenges, a health concern and economic downturn.

The scale of health concern is an unprecedented one. Coronavirus (COVID–19) presents an extremely challenging situation to Governments around the world. In order to contain the spread of disease, the first phase would be a lockdown which most Governments have already implemented. The spread of disease can be contained only through contact tracing, testing, isolation and enabling recovery of effected patients. These are steps that will follow the lockdown.

The lockdown has resulted in nearly one-third of the global population being in some way or other being confined to their homes. This includes the 1.3 billion persons in India as well. All business enterprises are under closure except for very essential goods and services. In such case, it is imperative that some economic decisions including changes in monetary policy have to be taken to reduce the economic costs and to mitigate hardship to business and citizens.

Indian businesses have traditionally relied on bank borrowings. Irrespective of scale of business operations – small MSMEs to Listed Enterprises have found it easy to go with bank finance rather than to raise money from other sources. Therefore, the Reserve Bank of India issued a monetary statement on 27-3-2020 to ease the situation arising out of this global health crisis that has led to a lockdown.

 

Here are some of the highlights of the statement:

1. RBI will also do a repo operation to Infuse Rs 1 lac crore (Repo is the rate at which RBI lends money to Commercial Banks). The rate has been also slashed by 75 basis points making it cheaper for banks to borrow.

2. Reverse Repo rate has been cut by 90 basis points – this makes it unattractive for banks to deposit excess funds with RBI. So banks will have more funds with them which can be used for lending to commercial borrowers rather than parking it with RBI.

3. The Cash Reserve Ratio – which is a certain percentage of bank deposits which banks are required to keep with RBI in the form of balance – is also reduced to 3%. This is expected to release Rs 1.37 lac crore rupees into the system.

4. The GDP forecast of 5%, as per RBI, is already at risk and therefore to overcome the challenge, the liquidity in financial system is being increased to infuse at least Rs 3.74 lac crore.

However, there is some upside that is also going to be complementary to ease the situation that is arising out of the current economic scenario.

• The crude oil prices have been reducing and this is an upside for the country which imports more than 80% of its oil requirement.

• Food prices are expected to soften in the backdrop of record food grain production.

These things alone would not help the ordinary citizens or businesses from the immediate cash flow crunch arising from unexpected slowdown of economic activity. Businesses have to pay for the salary, the employee benefit schemes like EPF/ESI, pay the taxes, rent and also to pay their creditors. The most important of all being salary. When businesses have loans coupled with these payments, it becomes nearly impossible to satisfy all the things at once. So, the RBI has announced that there will be a 3-month moratorium on payment of instalments of term loans and deferring of interest on working capital.

These steps have the dual advantage of – bank loans not being classified as NPA due to non-payment of interest or instalments and businesses having sufficient liquidity to pay the priority outflows like salary and vendor payments to keep the supply channel open.

 

Relaxation on term loan instalments and interest:

All term loans, including agricultural term loans, retail and crop loans will be having a 3 month moratorium period. Working capital interest will also have a moratorium period. Banks will have the discretion in deciding limits the limits on working capital. Any miss in payments will not be considered as a default and not reported to credit information companies. This will be a relief to all sections of society, public and businesses. This applies to banks and NBFC’s as well as all-India Financial Institutions. This will provide relief to all borrowers who have instalments falling between 1-March-2020 and 31-May-2020.

It is also important to note that RBI has specifically clarified that the repayment schedule and residual tenor of such loans will be shifted across the board by three months after the moratorium period.

Further, it is also to be noted that this is an option that will be given to borrowers who have genuine financial difficulties and they will have to approach bank with a request for the moratorium period.

This concession would be most required for businesses operating in the hospitality, tourism and other sectors like service providers where the business lost during this period of lockdown will not be recouped after the end of lockdown. Manufacturing and export entities may also face loss of orders/sales but the hit on service sector, transport including cabs and buses and entertainment sector could be large as these businesses have time utility factor.

 

Personal and housing loan repayment, credit card dues

The RBI has clarified that the moratorium benefits are available for personal and housing loans, car loans etc. It is applicable for instalments or interest, credit card dues, EMI’s and bullet repayments (one time repayment or large single payment).

 

Working capital loan interest condition

For working capital loans sanctioned in the form of overdraft or cash credit, lenders are permitted to defer the recovery of interest applied on such loans. The accumulated interest accrued interest shall be recovered immediately after completion of this period.

 

Economic package announced by the government:

The central government has also announced earlier in the week economic package of Rs 1.7 lac crore for relief of the poor. This includes both cash and non-cash benefit transfer. Some of these measures are strengthening of existing schemes and some are additional schemes. This is likely to address some of problems that arise from both demand and supply factors. Cash benefit transfer will give the benefit for demand side of economy and the supply will be taken care of Public Distribution System thus minimizing the effect of the poor section of society.

 

The road ahead:

The events of the last few days are some of most challenging and taking us to certain uncharted future. A global action coupled with economic package will help a quicker recovery.

It is time to think of new action and decisions in business. A careful and thoughtful act is the need of the hour.