Self-replicating machines and the real Homer Simpson at Mumbai's INK conference

In November 2009 I participated as a musician in TED’s first conference in Asia held in Mysore, India.

This month's INK conference -- designed to take up from where TEDIndia left off -- came to Lavasa, a township development close to Mumbai, from December 10-12. 

INK, according to its organizers, stands for "fuelling Innovation and Knowledge (INK) by bringing together the world's most fascinating thinkers and doers from a range of disciplines."

Ambitious? Try now you can only lose. 

Many people, some famous like James Cameron and Matt Groening, but all ultra-smart, told their stories. I’m going to share some ideas, some of their stories, that stuck with me.

‪Pioneering filmmaker James Cameron spoke about his love for underwater exploration. He regularly dives in a special submarine to below 10,000 feet, where the pressure is more than 1 ton per square inch.

He also mentioned how partaking in this dangerous and humbling exercise helped him to be a better team worker, and to dull his famous temper. Cameron visited the Kumbha Mela last year, and the similarities between his blue avatars and the ash-coated dread-locked sadhus is hard to miss. 

‪Anand Giridharadas, author and journalist with the International Herald Tribune and New York Times, spoke of how the biggest changes happening in India are in the minds of people.

One of the key concepts he developed was "Television is good for you," expertly illustrated by a young boy from a village in Bihar, who said that when he saw a guy on TV catching an anaconda, he knew that that guy was the best person in the world for that job.

Everyone on TV, compared to his local role models, were the best at doing what they do. And this inspired him to be like them, and not follow his family in their drudgery.

‪

Matt Groening, cherubic creator of The Simpsons, told us he took all the Simpsons' names from his own immediate family. Yes, his dad is called Homer, his mum Marge, his sister Lisa. His is the only name that changed to Bart. He didn’t want to screw himself over, Groening said.

However, Homer Groening was, unlike his fetid yellow namesake, an intelligent man with an eye for performance art. At INK Groening played a 30-year old video his dad had made, which showed Homer shooting a basketball backwards, increasing the distance between his back and the ring by an inch every week for 30 years, juxtaposed with some Zen poetry written on the screen. Quite magical.

‪Deepak Chopra gave me an important insight into the science of well-being. His message: the world is in continuous flux. Everything, including us, is constantly changing.

There are no structures, only process. Nouns are used to understand the world, but they don't really exist. Only verbs do. Lovely idea.

Tom Wujek a Canadian designer, told us how product design and even architecture as we know it, was going to transform completely –- you can create anything on your computer and it will be physically reproduced.

Three innovations that are making this possible:

1. 3D scanning machines that allow you to make an accurate 3D digital replica of any object, from a vase to a yacht.

2. Cloud computing, that allows you to harness the combined power of several connected computers to process information faster. 

3. 3D printing machines. 3D printing is a form of manufacturing technology where a three dimensional object is created by laying down successive layers of material. Today, these machines are relatively small, and are used for making models of a product that may be mass produced in the future, like a plastic chair, or a ceramic vase.

But rapid advancements mean that new raw materials are possible. One machine being built is over six floors high, and will be able to 'print' a concrete house/structure that is four floors high. The important aspect of this technology is that there is no limitation on design.

You just have to make a 3D image of anything, and it will be produced. Tom ended his note by saying that one day, the printing machine will be able to reproduce itself, which sounds like the start of the Matrix, maybe.

And lastly, Rick Smolan, a TIME, Life, and National Geographic photographer, narrated a staggering personal story. I’ll recap it as well as I can from memory.

Smolan had gone to Vietnam in the 1970s to shoot a photo essay, and while he was at a village, he saw this beautiful young girl, with blonde hair, who looked completely out of place. He learnt that there were many such progeny from U.S. marines and local women, most of whom had to endure racism their entire lives.

The girls parents were dead, so he asked her grandmother permission to shoot her for a few days, and did so. Smolan’s entire talk was punctuated by stunning photos of the girl going about her daily routine of school, play and so on, against the lush backdrop of rural Vietnam.

On the day of departure, he had his translator say bye to the girl and her family, and they all started weeping. The grandmother had told the girl that Rick was the father she had been waiting for her entire life.

Smolan was shocked, moved, and confused; not sure whether this was a scam. He decided to help her, but was too young and unsettled to adopt her himself, so he wrote an epic seven-page letter to his buddy (who, at the time had two children and a pregnant wife) asking him to do this magnanimous deed.

His friend agreed, and they came back to Vietnam, located the girl who had been displaced from her village, survived a fire in their hotel room, and took her back to the United States. Smolan showed us photos of her as she grew up there, changed her name, got married and had kids! It was surreal.

Smolan’s friend was the official INK photographer, so he was in the audience at the time of this speech. We had to give them a standing ovation, and I was left thinking what amazing human beings they were, while I'm still stuck in a world of self-gratification. 

There was a debauched night somewhere in the middle of all this, where I was coerced to DJ for a rowdy bunch of intellectuals at an after party. But the only music I had at my disposal were some assorted Tamil CDs that belonged to a hapless Wipro engineer.

Naturally, I belligerently rose to the occasion and, even though my memory of the event is hazy after that, I was dubiously hailed as a savior by some of the punters.