A 4 Year Old Murdered By His Own Mother at Candolim, Goa : Suchana Seth
Personal conflicts ending an ambitious and highly accomplished career of an Indian woman, leading her to murder own son?
Goa woke up not only to a cloudy and gloomy morning on Tuesday, 9th January 2024; but also to the mind numbing news of a 4 Year old boy being murdered by his own mother at Sinquerim, Candolim in North Goa.
The horrible and gruesome act by a very learnt ,educated and accomplished woman in the most buzzing field of Technology today, AI or Artificial Intelligence has everyone asking only one word : Why?
Suchana Seth the founder of AI Ethics Startup, Mindful AI Labs was adjudged as "100 Most Brilliant Women in AI"; by all means a very remarkable achievement in the most toughest and competitive field of Technology and Engineering today; which is already changing the way we live our daily lives.
She specialed in "AI Ethics" ,a branch of Artificial Intelligence, which keeps a check and balances on the ethical use of AI and the various algorithms used in applications. She is like the top watchdog who are striving to make sure that world would still be a safe and sane place. Even after rapid propagation of AI in daily lives.
She would not have chosen this field to pursue unless she was compassionate and caring for all human beings around. She definitely cared for all of us
They why she decided to murder her own Son at a beach which is famous all over the world for fun and frolic?
Digging into whatever is available about her online, it seems, her professional venture, her company Mindful AI Labs had a sudden and quick death, in just about 4 months! It was launched on 15th October 2020 and there has been no updates on company Twitter profile after 24th Jan 2021.
In fact, there has not been any updates on Suchana's Twitter profile as well, after the same day! Something truly devastating happened to her sometime after that, which forced her to give up her life's work and probably her most passionate dream, to bring ethics into use of AI not only in India but globally.
The business model was a very sound and robust one. Every company truly into Ai would line up to get a certification from one of the topmost in the field, about their ethical use of AI. This shall ensure that all fears are allayed in the minds of prospective customers and end user. But her dreams were shattered.
Someone, let's call her "M" who joined Suchana at Mindful AI Labs at Day 0 and was very happy at the 1st and sadly the last quarter, has a cryptic tweet sometime in February 2021 : "The music has been stopped!"
When you have been globally acclaimed by one and all and proudly announce your professional baby to all; such setbacks or rather forced full-stop are too hard on both heart and mind, to take it kindly.
While it is not unusual sometimes for very successful people to go silent on SM, to be silent on the SM profile of your dream company, is highly detrimental to the future prospects of the company. Unless something utterly devastating and drastic happened, no one would be foolish enough to do so, let alone Suchana, a brilliant woman!
Suchana was also dormant on her Twitter profile for more than 2 Years from 19th April to 1st July 2020.
For a top notch academic and researcher like her, it is again very unusual. Something was surely amiss again, in those 2 years. But she managed to pull herself brilliantly and within 3.5 months launched her own dream company.
Sine her son whom she murdered was only 4 Years old, it could be construed that she was probably married during this intervening period, tried to put herself in a regular homely life and got pregant and gave birth to a boy!Once she was good enough to bounce back to her world of academics , she plunged into it.
Suchana was not devoid of like minded company at her venture. Mindful AI Labs was an all female enterprise. With a staff strength less than 10, she surely had a couple of good women around her. Personal relationship built over professional commons erode over a period of time.
Looks like after her company almost ceased to exist, she was almost left alone to fend for herself, but there is no credible proof to support this fact; except the gruesome act which she committed.
Usually, women in high tech, highly accomplished and also a Mom; are too proud of this fact, because of the herculean task which it is.
On Suchana's SM profile she has not even mentioned that she is a Mom; almost like sef pitiful and remorse of the fact; something akin to a burden thrusted upon her, against a wishes. An impediment to her dreams and ambition to keep AI technology, within the bounds of ethical use.
A bigger than life, A bigger than self ambition; which transcemds everything personal! For which, no sacrifice is big?
When you visit the company page of Suchana's enterprise, it is pretty boiler plate. No news, No blogs, No update on clients. It was a sudden and abrupt death. In topsy and turvy world of Startups, everything that can go wrong, would go wrong. Specially the promises made to you, when you are about to take plunge, which promotes you to do so, only to br be rescinded later.
But Suchana does not seem to be the kind of woman who would have got broken by such a setback. It was surely something which was deeply personal, which left her so emotionally and mentally drained, that she almost gave up.
What was that, we do not know yet. But when you are a top notch successful technologist in the world and also a mom; in the still utterly dogmatic society of India; it is a very perilous path; unless one has a very strong emotional support from all your personal near and dear ones!
The incorporated company name of Suchana's enterprise is "Saatvik Machine Intelligence Technologies Pvt Ltd".
"Saatvik" in Hindi language means "pure" and "good".
How can a die hard advocate of pureness, goodness and ethics could commit such a devilish act; is something which only Suchana can answer. But this surely tells one thing, she was definitely not at all evil.
The crime was probably pre-meditated or something happened all of a sudden on 7th January 2024, which triggered Suchana to be such devilish, a 4 Year old Kindergarten going boy, lured at the pretext of Pizza, Ice-Cream and pure frolic on the beach and then being betrayed by her own mother in the most gruesome manner should not have been the desired end of all her professional woes, probably triggered by personal and familial conflicts.
This first post of 2024, on the 9th Day of January has been penned with a very sorrowful and heavy heart.
This is for the 4 Year old, whose life was cut short abruptly at Goa.
Something which should never happen with anyone irrespective of age or gender.
Goa stands for happiness since time immemorial and it should be out endeavour that it is known for only happiness.
We can definitely strive for a "Saatvik" Goa, but immediate goal would be to return to a "Happy" destination.