Jagged Intelligence

Mrinal Chatterjee

Window Seat 

Of late I have been reading about and using AI quite extensively. AI has what experts call 'jagged intelligence'.

"Jagged intelligence" is a term coined by Andrej Karpathy, a Slovak-Canadian AI researcher, who co-founded and formerly worked at OpenAI, to describe how AI models (LLMs) display, often simultaneously, incredibly advanced, human-level, or superhuman abilities alongside childish, "catastrophic" failures on simple tasks. It refers to an uneven, unpredictable performance "landscape"—a "jagged frontier" of capability rather than a smooth, uniform increase in intelligence.

This morning a former student, presently a hard-boiled journalist, told me about his encounter with an AI powered chat-bot, which was surprisingly human-like. "It was eerie, it sounded almost human- the human-like pauses, instant paraphrasing, explaining with examples- everything."

And then, the dumb answers chatGPT at times gives you.

Together- it is 'jagged intelligence'.

Elections as a Web series

If Indian elections were a Netflix series, the 2026 season would be titled: “Plot Twists You Didn’t See Coming (But Everyone Claims They Predicted).”

Let’s begin with West Bengal, where the scriptwriters clearly decided, “Enough of suspense—let’s flip the table.” The Bharatiya Janata Party stormed in with a historic win, bagging 207 seats out of 294 and finally entering a state where it had long been the political equivalent of a polite guest who never got invited to dinner. Mamata Banerjee, once the undisputed protagonist, suddenly found herself in a plot twist worthy of a Bengali thriller.

Meanwhile, in Tamil Nadu, politics turned into full-blown cinema. Actor-turned-politician C. Joseph Vijay delivered a “blockbuster debut,” smashing the decades-old DMK–AIADMK duopoly like a climactic fight scene. Voters didn’t just press buttons—they practically bought first-day-first-show tickets.

Over in Assam, the Bharatiya Janata Party decided not to experiment with new scripts. Why fix what isn’t broken? They retained power comfortably, proving that sometimes Indian voters prefer a sequel—especially if the previous one had decent “box office collections.”

And then comes Kerala—the state that treats elections like a disciplined pendulum. This time, it swung back to the Indian National Congress-led UDF, politely telling the Left, “Thank you for your service, see you next term.” In doing so, Kerala also managed to do something historic: temporarily evict the Left from power everywhere in India.

In summary, these elections had everything—drama, debutants, comebacks, and plot twists. Analysts are now confidently explaining why all of this was “inevitable,” while voters quietly prepare for the next season, where the only predictable thing will be… unpredictability.

Mango

There are fruits, and then there is the mango—the undisputed monarch of Indian summers, which makes the hot itchy summer bearable. Known scientifically as Mangifera indica, the mango has been cultivated in the Indian subcontinent for over 4,000 years.

From the aristocratic Alphonso of Maharashtra to the fragrant Himsagar of Bengal and the juicy Banganapalli of Andhra Pradesh, each variety comes with its own personality. Some are smooth and sophisticated, others fibrous but full of character—rather like extended family members at a summer wedding.

Mangoes are not just eaten; they are experienced. There is a whole ritual involved—sniffing, squeezing, slicing, and inevitably arguing about the “correct” way to eat them. Should you cut neat cubes or go gloriously primitive and suck the pulp straight from the seed? This is less a culinary choice and more a philosophical stance.

Nutritionally, mangoes are rich in vitamins A and C, antioxidants, and enough natural sugar to make you promise, every year, that you will “only have one”—a promise that rarely survives contact with reality. They appear in everything from aamras and pickles to chutneys and desserts, proving their remarkable versatility.

Historically, mangoes have enjoyed royal patronage—legend has it that Emperor Akbar planted thousands of mango trees in his famed orchards. Today, their reign continues unabated.

In the end, mangoes are not just a fruit—they are a season, a mood, and for many, a perfectly reasonable excuse to ignore all dietary discipline until the monsoon arrives.