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Exploring the frontiers of knowledge at Precog
I am Shashwat Singh, I was a CLD at IIIT. I am about to join NYU CDS as a PhD student to research the science of foundational models. This is a very exciting time to be in the space of foundational models, no-one knows what they’re doing and any work to shed light on how to best model intelligence has a chance to be very useful and impactful for the foreseeable future. Precog is one of the best places in India to do foundational work in AI because PK has designed the lab culture to be one where wild ideas and motivated people flourish. Joining One of the first conversations…
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When the Stars Aligned
A TLDR? The best decision of my life – personally and academically. And I am thankful to every single person who made it so. The Beginning The first question that most people asked me when I joined PreCog as a Research Assistant was how I found out about PreCog. It was a funny story. I was looking through CSRankings in September 2023, trying to shortlist universities for MS in fall 2024. I was half-minded about it- join MS immediately or get more research experience before I apply. During this process, a random thought of checking the university rankings in India occurred to me. Then I proceeded to check (read: stalk)…
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My PhD Journey: From Cryptography Dreams to NLP Discoveries
Every PhD story is unique, shaped by choices, circumstances, mentors, and serendipity. Looking back, I realize mine has been a winding yet rewarding journey—one that began with an interest in cryptography and evolved into a deep fascination with natural language processing (NLP). From Codes to Languages My research aspirations were first sparked after watching the biopic of Alan Turing. The elegance of cryptography fascinated me, and I initially hoped to pursue it further. However, when I joined JNU for my master’s, my preferred professor in cryptography had no available slots. That’s when I stumbled upon the thought: human languages are very much like cryptic messages—unintelligible until you know how to…