“We Can No Longer Think Only About Endless Growth!”
“Right now we don't have the conditions for AI to develop dramatically,” says Krasimir Kostadinov, chief technology officer of Scalefocus, who argues that the future of IT has aspects even more important than artificial intelligence. After his provocative talk at the 9th DEV.BG All in One conference, we continued the conversation about the Bulgarian dimensions of the IT future. Is it worth entering IT in Bulgaria today, and which qualities matter in the dynamic times we live in?
62Can We Tell a Generated Voice from a Human One? The Answer Is Clear
Can you tell a human voice from one generated by algorithms? 2,036 people took part in the Digital Stories experiment looking for the answer to this question, along with many other important nuances. The result, in my view, is unambiguous…
63“Bulgarians Are Getting Smarter”
How is it that over the past 30 years Bulgarians… have been getting smarter, according to the only organization that provably measures this? Are programmers the largest group among those who pass the Mensa tests? Does intelligence still matter when technology handles more and more mental tasks, and why, in the days of the AI revolution, is it more important than ever to develop our minds?
64ChatGPT, 1981
Is AI the great chance of our day? Will we seize it, or let it slip? Propusnatiyat shans (The Missed Chance) is one of Lyuben Dilov's lesser-known books. Here one of Bulgaria's most popular science fiction writers, also known as the author of the Fourth Law of Robotics, isn't even a writer—at least according to the plot. Instead of writing, he orders a series of stories in various genres from his new computer, which creates them in his name and in his style… Sound familiar?
65“Sadly, Football Is Becoming More and More of a Reality Show”
If you love sport, I recommend this conversation. It will make you think in some very unexpected directions. “Walking encyclopedia” is a cliché that is no exaggeration for a handful of Bulgarians, and in my view today's guest is one of them. Teodor Borisov is a sports journalist who travels the planet in search of powerful football stories that are still being born in these technological times. A historian and author of books on Bulgarian history and sport, he writes questions for many of the most popular TV quiz shows, a path that began when he won Minuta e mnogo (A Minute Is a Lot) three times. There is nothing from the past of Bulgarian (and not only Bulgarian) sport you can ask him about that he doesn't know. Today, though, something different will happen. I will ask him about the future. About the magic of sport and King Football. About the commercialization and oversaturation that come with technology and can drive away even the most loyal fans. About the crisis of authority.
66“That’s It! No Phone!” No—What Matters Is What the Child Does With It
How do we find the balance so that children use technology to the full without it leading to problems? A long series of important Children’s Digital Stories set out to help us search for that delicate middle path. More than 350 parents and relatives of children up to age 11 took part in the site’s survey. Donika Borimechkova is a psychologist and psychotherapist with more than 14 years of experience who works with children of all ages. Before turning to psychological counseling, she spent 5 years on the staff of a public kindergarten. She holds a bachelor’s degree in primary and preschool education and a master’s in developmental psychology. We prepared the survey together, and now it is time to discuss the results and look for the key points. About the fear of the digital, about the great challenges of technology and artificial intelligence. About balance. As in the other conversations, the emphasis falls on useful advice which, I hope, will help more adults help the children around them so that technology becomes their friend.
67“Right Now, the Conditions Simply Aren't There for AI to Make a Dramatic Leap”
With Krasimir Kostadinov you can talk about geopolitics, astrophysics and history, all in the context of technology, the march of time and the trends that shape all our lives. He is the chief technology officer of Scalefocus: an engineer, architect and programmer with wide-ranging interests and deep knowledge, which he often shows off in his tech blog. In his current role, one of his direct duties is… to peer into the future, trying thoughtfully, sensibly and from every angle to predict where technology is taking us. We will peer into the future with him, for a sober and very different look at AI and the other big themes of the new age. Join us for a stroll through what lies ahead!
68“Kids Today Are Still Curious!”
If anyone can compare how the knowledge of Bulgarian language and literature is developing, both in high school graduates and in AI, it is today’s guest. For the second year running, Mr. Svetoslav Stoychev took part in the Digital Stories experiment that tested how the newest AI models handle the national school-leaving exam, and this time he helped bring in two real graduates. Now we talk about the results, about students’ love of books, and about what keeps a young teacher burning for the profession in the age of artificial intelligence.
69“I Don't See Programmers Disappearing”
Minko Gechev holds a black belt in karate… and, as a seasoned senior developer at Google, in programming too. Last time we followed his fascinating path from the small Bulgarian town of Troyan to one of the software giants of our time; now we turn to some of the most exciting questions of the day: what the future of software engineering looks like from its Mecca, Silicon Valley, whether the programmer's profession will survive at all, what is worth learning today and whether we can prepare for an exciting but challenging future. And how does our guest rediscover the wisdom of the East at the very heart of Western technology?
70“AI Is Everyone’s Big Chance to Climb Their Own Everest”
“The world stands at the Rubicon. We will live alongside smart machines, a new and different world awaits us, but are we ready for it?” That question, the very reason Digital Stories exists, is posed on the cover of her new book by today’s guest, Petya Minkova. In The Transition from the Digital Age to the Hybrid Civilization, she traces the long road from the first computers to a future of superpowerful artificial intelligence. And while the answer to whether we are ready is clear, there are so many other important questions we will discuss in the lines below! Do we have any future other than as a hybrid civilization of humans and technology? What does our survival depend on, and what will our daily lives look like once this transition hits with full force? Why is AI far more than a danger—why is it also a chance for each of us to climb our own personal Everest?
71Isn't the Ordinary Person the Most Extraordinary of All?!
Nikolay Terziyski, a writer and journalist born in Smolyan in 1983, returns to Digital Stories with Rodinia, a novel of 16 stories written over ten years. It is a book of journeys and homecomings, about coming together, drifting apart and the bonds that memory and words keep alive between us. A conversation about islands and continents, imagination and imperfection, and what AI may take from us.
72Child or AI? Could 4,000 People Tell Who Drew It?
The “Child’s Drawing or AI?” experiment drew enormous interest! In a month and a half, almost 4,000 people took the quiz, trying to tell 15 real drawings by children under 11 from images created by artificial intelligence. Time to sum up the results: did we rise to the challenge, were the real or the generated drawings easier to spot, did the children themselves judge better, and why do the conclusions matter?
73(In)human Errors: Can AI Be Your Proofreader?
At a time when fewer and fewer media outlets, and even publishers, trust specialists to watch over spelling, could artificial intelligence (AI) turn out to be a useful assistant? It is time for a telling spelling experiment with some of the most powerful models around. We all (we hope) believe that online we are now judged by our spelling rather than our clothes, and since we communicate more and more through written text, the way we write reveals so much to the other person. Can AI help us write correctly?
74Test: Can You Tell an AI Voice from a Human One?
Six audio clips, each speaking a short phrase. Some were generated by AI, the others are real human voices. Can you tell them apart? Take part by August 15, 2025, and with six correct answers you enter the draw for a modest gift. Will you guess which voice belongs to a person and which to a machine? The gauntlet has been thrown!
75Who's Speaking—a Human or an Algorithm?
It's no news that AI generates images and texts that (we checked!) cannot be told apart from those made by humans. Video still seems to lag behind, but… Can you imagine a voice indistinguishable from a human one reading the news, or calling you on the phone with no chance of you telling the difference—not a cloned voice, but an entirely artificial one, in pure Bulgarian, a language almost impossible for non-native speakers? It's time for a resonant Digital Story, and a challenge awaits you afterward…
76How Did AI Score on Bulgaria's School-Leaving Exam?
What happens if three of the most powerful AI models sit the matura, Bulgaria's school-leaving exam in Bulgarian language and literature, and two experienced examiners grade them? To make the contest fiercer and more revealing, two real graduates and the author of these lines join in. Will ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini earn perfect scores or fail spectacularly, can the teachers tell machine from human, and what do the results say about Bulgarian education and about the big questions new technologies bring?
77“Let’s Stop Underestimating Ourselves!”
Two programmers sit down to talk about our broken public conversation, about division and about the road to success. It sounds like the start of a joke, but it became a serious, thought-provoking interview with Vesko Kolev, head of the startup Icanpreneur, on the DEV.BG podcast. We talk about why we need to start listening and talking to each other again, why it is worth being glad when your child gets a bad grade, and what we need as a society to move forward together in the age of advanced artificial intelligence.
78Peter Thiel: The Conservative Visionary
Facebook, SpaceX, Airbnb, LinkedIn, PayPal, Ethereum. The revolution of OpenAI and ChatGPT, the rise of Donald Trump and his ubiquitous (until recently) ally Elon Musk. Is there really one person who ties all these phenomena together? More than that: it is no exaggeration to say that if it weren't for today's hero, hardly any of them would have come true… Peter Thiel has earned the name of a prophet, a guru. The great visionary of the tech age. And yet he holds deeply controversial views that somehow stay out of the big media noise. But that is typical of the German-born entrepreneur. Some see him as the éminence grise of Silicon Valley, others as a sage who can show anyone the road to great success in the technological era. A multibillionaire, he says competition is a deceptive good and monopolies are the solution of the future. He created a large-scale program to help people who choose to abandon their education in order to start their own business, which in turn paves the way for the next generation of tech leaders. All this and much more is Mr. Thiel. It is time he stepped into the spotlight, because he is certainly one of the people who have already changed the lives of each of us. More than that: ever more is expected to depend on him in the turbulent technological times we live in.
79“Today We Can Be Anything, Yet We Choose to Be the Same”
Why does it matter so much whether we can tell children's drawings from AI-generated images? What does the future of creativity, of art, of the human being look like at a time when algorithms turn out to be indistinguishable from us as authors, and even better ones? What is worth teaching our children today? Can you tell 15 children's drawings from 15 images generated by artificial intelligence? In just a few days, the Digital Stories challenge for children and parents has prompted more than 2,500 people to test their intuition! The results of the test are shaping up to be extremely interesting, and we will talk about them once it closes on July 1. The experiment was created together with today's guest, Elitsa Staneva-Britton. A psychologist, journalist and teacher, she is currently working on her doctoral dissertation at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, and her subject is creativity in the age of artificial intelligence. The time has come to talk about each of these topics.
80What Will You Be When You Grow Up?
What do today's kids want to be when they grow up? On their very own holiday, it's time for the results of a curious survey. The Digital Stories series on children's encounter with technology gathered important perspectives on many subjects. Of the 350 people who took part in the site's survey, 289 chose to answer: What do the children want to be when they grow up? “Influencer” or “doctor”—which do you think turned out to be the most common answer? How are kids' dreams changing? And what does that say about us adults, about technology, about the spirit of the times?
