Is this a revival?

Truth be told, I had forgotten about the existence of this space since the past TWELVE years! It is only as part of some recent conversations that I remembered that I used to write, catalog, and maintain a repository of feelings and events - because that is essentially what a "personal" blog is, right? A digital catalog of one's thoughts and expressions as they navigate through the daily conundrums of life. 

I do not know how to write a revival post, and how it can summarize the events and growth of the past decade. I wish the Pythagoras Theorem could help me out here, but alas, I think it is for me to figure this out on my own ;). The one thing that has remained consistent though (as compared to the previous posts) - is the use of punctuations based emojis! Despite the absolute influx and (apparent) takeover of our lives by AI, I still find joy in the humble ':D's and ':)'s and ';)'s, while typing on a laptop/Mac. 

"AI" - maybe that could be the theme of the revival post - but I wonder how to dissect this complicated yet omnipresent term, and more importantly my ever-so-complicated relationship with it :D. Today, there is a huge buzz in the entire World with AI taking over, in terms of sophisticated chatbots, agents, automated workflows, etc. On the other hand, for me, AI still remains code - a bunch of files which can adhere to a human defined logic, which can be configured at will, and more importantly which can be "shut down" when required. The power of this code is huge - and so is the power of the humans who understand it, develop it, and execute it. Being part of the generation of researchers who saw this very field grow and evolve while being heavily involved in it - makes one wonder if my contributions should be more? :). But then, what are 'contributions' and who defines 'more'? In the current World of absolute non-linear chaos, trajectories, and blurred definitions, I guess it falls upon oneself to seek the meaning of such questions. 

I suppose it's safe to say that the transition from being a developer of AI to an adopter of AI is tough and not straightforward. It is difficult to segregate the working day from the non-working hours, difficult to segregate the job from the fun. Regardless of everything, I guess AI has done its job of silently creeping into all domains - including this revival post! Given its huge role in my past decade, it is only fair that the theme captures the majority of limelight :).