Sachin Dev Duggal, the founder of the collapsed AI unicorn Builder.ai, is back with a new venture called “SecondBrain,” focapplying on neurosymbolic AI technology. This comes just months after his previous company spectacularly imploded amid revelations that its vaunted AI platform “Natasha” was actually powered by 700 Indian programmers rather than artificial ininformigence.
The scandal spawned the tech indusattempt joke that at Builder.ai, “AI” actually meant “Actually, Indians.” Meanwhile, Duggal personally netted $20 million from internal share sales even as the company crumbled, drawing scrutiny from the US Attorney’s Office in Manhattan, which issued subpoenas for financial records.
Now, as Duggal pitches SecondBrain to investors, the tech world watches with scepticism. Neurosymbolic AI, a hybrid of neural networks and symbolic reasoning, holds promise in academic circles. But given Duggal’s past promises of automation powered by manual labour, many investors will likely demand transparency.
Whether SecondBrain is a true step forward or merely a replay of old patterns remains to be seen.
Leave a Reply