The new Bhashmasur- Artificial intelligence (AI)
# वरं ददौ महोदारो भस्मासुरस्य शङ्करः। (Shiva, a generous, simple hearted lord granted a wish to Bhasmasur, as Shiva was happy with the 'disciplined spiritual practice' known as Tapasya by Bhasmasur)
# यस्य मूर्ध्नि करं न्यस्य भस्म भूयात् स वै जनः॥ ( The 'granted wish' was that if 'Bhasmasura places his handon anyone's head- the person will burn down to ashes".
You know what the Bhasmasura's immediate action was? Remember this article is about AI.
Introduction:
Since about 5 years the AI engines, for example, CHAT GPT (Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer) have entered the internet. In 2024-25, when Deepseek made entry to this word, and almost subsequently the Anthropic's Claude or Allen Musk's "Grok" or IIT Madras Alumni (Mr. Arvind Srinivas)'s Perplexity . Even though, I am not an expert, there are so many AI engines available, not to mention the Google's Gemini or colab, I am definitely missing a large number of them. I shall stand corrected for any mistakes in referring these or even misspelling some of them. The idea of writing this article is aimed somewhat different- as the title claims: Bhasmasur.
The Dictionary:
About 30 years back or say in 1980s, we were told that 'to learn a language' we must read newspapers and also keep a handy dictionary to look for the words that are new. This habit was inculcated early with different sized dictionaries suitable to the primary, high school or at graduate level. Often the dictionary would be a gift for the best performance in the class or a convocation prize. The idea was when you look for a word, as a bonus, you also come across a few more unknown words. and your vocabulary increases that helps everywhere later in the life. The dictionary was an integral part of the education system. Every house had one, every student in hostel had on, every teacher had one in his/her office! The dictionaries were very useful for the foreign tourists or, people to communicate with foreigners in any languages- you name the language, there was a dictionary from this language to that and vice versa.
The encyclopedia:
The second popular books were encyclopedia of anything: right from "The Encyclopedia of Animals" to "solar system" or you name it. The time passed and we started searching the internet and used Wikipedia ( https://www.wikipedia.org) and Google search or The yahoo. For about 2 decades Google was the king of the internet with search engine and the GMAIL access to the whole world! There were other mails servers as well: Yahoo, Hotmail and so on. We are talking about 2020-2026 or so. We do not know how things are moving in future. We should note that google was already in the game since about 2 decades, when the verb "googling" came into existence. We also remember Wikipedia in place of "encyclopedia" as mentioned earlier.
Computer programing during 1990
I remember taking a 21 day course on COBOL programing at IIT Kanpur (IITK), while I was a graduate student at NainiTal. We were given a book by Professor V. Rajaraman, who could be seen as the father of the computer in India, specially at IITK. Just as a sidelight, we used DEC1090 system of IBM at IITK that time. However, we could also see the photographs of first computer being installed at IITK in August 1963 , see the photo below from X (formerly Twitter: https://x.com/thebetterindia/status/1799508950116692372, downloaded on Sept. 20, 2026).
Choosing COBOL was not out of interest but tht was what was available. For a lower -middle class family in some countries, it is the availability- and not the preference- what they decide to take up as a career. In my case it was just an additional training. We were doing reasonably good research in photophysics. However, programing appeared as an attractive carrier. Several of my friends took courses in programing and got jobs based on these. There were large "programing industry" in India during 1990-2010. There are still several, and presumably, they have changed the plan of action with time. We all remember the Y2K problem during late 90s and introduction of "Computer based train reservation" in India- a big boom to the Indian passengers. The government of the contemporary times were also fired for the introduction of computer in office. But i also remember, learning computer msdos, lotus (earlier versions of of excel) was something similar to find a job as was learning typing in 1960s on wards. My very close friends and relatives were employed / self-employed based on the computer programing even after completing their masters in core subjects! Many of them must have retired by now- that confirms we are talking about more than 30 years back (1990s).
Core subjects!
This term has suddenly appeared in the second last sentence of previous para. We will talk about this in next paragraphs in bit more detail.
Undergraduate programs in Computer science (CS):
Its not important but just th B.Tech. programs in enginering colleges were started in 1980s or so, may be a bit earlier in some institutes. By the late1990's, there were mushrooming of engineering colleages du to the job market in the CS! Its a different story that after 2 decades several of these collages closed down.
Software industry:
Regarding the core subjects, the trends in last 2 decades were such that not only the graduates in CS, but 80-90% of graduates in other subjects were attracted to the job market. These students, besides their won subjects also learnt the programing such as C, C++, HTML or python. They were placed in companies working for the multinationals around the word for the "software industry"! your could also hear words such as "software super power", or "Silicon valley of India".
The mad rush:
The Computer programing and specially the computer science (CS) subject became so popular that the a few graduates were getting attractive offers of about a crore rupees per year (when the salaries were about 4 lakhs per year for general public). As mentioned earlier, students from Core subjects also were placed in software industry, left and right. There was a mad rush for the top rankers to chose the CS as the subject in engineering colleges.
Old gold: The brain drain and Tapasya:
During last 30 years, the top ranked candidates of the competitive exams or toppers of the colleges only chose the CS branch in any collage in the country, even if they get Electrical, mechanical or Civil or any other excellent subjects. I would even rate "Geology" or "Geological Engineering " as one of the top subjects. This is so as experts in these areas would help understand and safeguard the humanity from the natural disasters such as the recent Nepal glacier tragedy" or the ">100 years of continuous fire in the Cole-mines". So the fastest minds of the country over last 3 decades went to develop the better engines for everyday use or for search (as that was what was most interesting to them). The better the candidate, the better was salary- the better was the search engine. The brain drain from the best of the countries was going to develop the present day AI. The "Tapasya" had finally completed.
The AI - present day Bhasmasur:
Recent statement by Mr. Jacob Coxon, who worked at both Anthropic and OpenAI, resigned stating that AI is "racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives" ! Thi statement is what exactly made me bring the 2nd line of the sanskrit verse in the beginning of this article. [यस्य मूर्ध्नि करं न्यस्य भस्म भूयात् स वै जनः॥ ( The 'granted wish' was that if 'Bhasmasura places his handon anyone's head- the person will burn down to ashes"].
Practical difficulties with education and student's daily life and future:
Students at higher institutes have access to AI. They think it as a good and easy tool as compared to searching the books in the libraries. Worse, the solutions of almost every numerical can be obtained quickly. Therefore, those who want to learn, think as if "this method" is the best. In a way , we all become lazy. Even to write this article, I had to type for about 2 hours continuously. Who has time for typing, just copy and paste Or better, take a photo and upload the question to AI!
It is to be noted that not everything that comes out of AI may be correct!
However, the students who wants to pass the exams or wish to get better grades, often upload the photo/PDFs of question to get the solutions and learn- This is perfectly fine. However, they could repeat these "skills" in the real examinations, which is known as "cheating". Thats where the disciplinary actions clicks in. This could ruin the whole semester or even the year of the student.
P.S1. #"यद्यत्करोति कल्याणी तत्त्वच्चानुकरोत्यसौ। स्वमूर्ध्नि हस्तं न्यदधात् तत्क्षणो न्यपतन्मृध" .
We will see if we can find a solution of the present day Bhasmasur- the AI.
PS2: #These slokas are searched on google and I would refer them as "Taken from the google search on 20th Sept. 2026).
