New Delhi: From ruling the upper echelons of the corporate sector to becoming an author and researcher, Gurcharan Das is now an AI guide. A phone call from philosopher and novelist Clancy Martin turned into an unlikely opportunity—the chance to front an AI book.
Das is known for his work on the Bhagavad Gita, and now he’s wrapping his decades of reading into an AI project, helmed by Rebind—a New York-based publishing company that’s “opening up the world’s favourite books” by routing them through AI. From Lena Dunham to Roxane Gay to Salman Rushdie, writers of various shades have been brought on board.
The Gita, for one, is being made accessible like never before. That’s because the ‘readers’ of this AI Bhagavad Gita will be engaging with a simultaneous interlocutor: Das’ voice. They’ll be given short lectures before each chapter, and every question—whether it stems from a cursory glance or hours of thought—will be answered by the AI in the voice of Das.
“They said you brought the Mahabharata into the 21st century in The Difficulty of Being Good. We now want you to do the same for the Gita,” said Das, seated in the study of his Jor Bagh home. “I like to play thought games, I think they help to expand our moral imagination.”
An AI book is emerging to be the ideal landscape for Das to manoeuvre through his “thought games”. When he travels to the US in the fall, he will be made to sit through a series of interviews, amounting to 15-20 hours. He will be questioned on every possible angle of the Gita, as his publisher seeks to anticipate which parts will pique a reader’s interest. These interviews will form the database for the AI.
“For example, in the case of the Gita, it might be simple questions about philosophy,” said Das. “They also might actually question the correctness of Krishna’s advice to Arjun at the beginning of the war.”
The Bhagavad Gita is notoriously layered. It’s a text that’s been used by Mahatma Gandhi, the “apostle of peace,” to Heinrich Himmler, an “apostle of war”. Both of them carried the Gita every single day, according to Das, who studied philosophy at Harvard University.
“Here was a text used in two different ways. They might read it and say, ‘how’s that possible?’ Intriguing questions I’ll have to confront,” he said.
The text is no longer simply a book, static and ever-present. Instead, it’s being rendered alive, filled with possibilities. According to the company’s website, Rebind’s next move is going to be “an interactive Bible”. It’s bringing readers a tall promise, telling them they’re going to “experience a new way to read”.
For Das too, caveats aside, AI holds the key to endless possibility.
“In India, education has been one of our weak suits. A teacher has students, and each one is of different ability. Some people fall behind and they don’t understand what she’s saying in class. She gives each one an AI assistant to ask any question,” said Das, presenting an example of what AI can bring.
‘Rebinders’
Rebind has an impressive mix of writers and an eclectic collection of books to be dissected. Lena Dunham is the guide to EM Forster’s Room with a View, Margaret Atwood for A Tale of Two Cities. As far as Das knows, he is the only Indian part of the illustrious group. However, a couple of Indian-origin writers and thinkers, namely Salman Rushdie and an alternative medicine advocate, Deepak Chopra, are also ‘rebinders’, as the guides are called.
Das has read F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and Friedrich Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra on Rebind.
“These were books I knew already, but yes, if I were new to a book—it would be quite useful,” said Das.
He is also writing a book of essays on the Gita, which will be published at a later point.
The intrigue of an AI book aside, when Das first received the phone call, he declined the offer.
“Originally, I refused. I just didn’t feel adequate. But then I thought to myself, what a wonderful opportunity to read the Gita once again, and explore its ideas anew.”
(Edited by Prasanna Bachchhav)