“Truly Intelligent AI? Only If We Take the Next Big Step”
Viktor Botev and his team are building a successful product in one of the most high-tech fields of artificial intelligence, yet his enthusiasm for the near future in which AI will change us all is far from the sweeping expectations of the day. For eight years he has been chief technology officer of Iris.ai, a Norwegian-Bulgarian startup that applies AI to vast bodies of scientific data. A long, human conversation about technology for connoisseurs: hallucinations, the limits of large language models, and why the era of Bulgaria's outsourcing companies is over.
02Where To Now, ChatGPT?
To be or not to be? Left or right? Life is a string of decisions, and on them hangs everything, from whether we reach the peaks we dream of to the eternal riddle of what to have for lunch. So we bring Hamlet and ChatGPT together to find the labyrinths, literal and figurative, that the electronic Virgil is ready to lead us through: five cases where artificial intelligence is already here to guide us, and five where we will have to wait (or never live to see it).
03Can AI Make Elections Fairer?
The day after tomorrow we will once again head to the ballot box, however old-fashioned that may sound (and essentially be). Yes, we live in strange times, but with all the possibilities technology gives us today, can we really not take measures so that the next elections are fairer, more impartial and free of obvious violations? This is not about politics but about technology. Not propaganda and campaigning, but data science and artificial intelligence, and how they can be of direct use in a matter so important to all of us.
04“Hard to Be a God”: What Do Bulgaria's Tech Leaders Read?
Do the people who drive the world of information technology forward actually read? They read like there's no tomorrow, and you're in for a surprise. Time for a very important and very bookish experiment: I asked 15 leading figures from different corners of the Bulgarian computer world to name their three favorite books and tell me why they would recommend them. Is it hard to be a god? A question for connoisseurs. And why is it hard?
05Elections + Artificial Intelligence: The Perfect Storm
This year nearly two-thirds of the planet will vote, one way or another, for those who will govern them, and for the first time it is happening in the age after ChatGPT. Can artificial intelligence become the deciding factor, can we avoid being manipulated, and could technology one day change how our societies are run? Here are eight reasons to stop and think.


