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Television network dumps entertainment for artificial intelligence
MUMBAI: In a dramatic reinvention that would make any consultant proud, Sri Adhikari Brothers Television Network Ltd is ditching its media heritage for the lucrative world of artificial intelligence. The Mumbai-listed company announced on 24 November that it plans to rebrand as Aqylon Nexus Ltd and build a 50-megawatt AI and green data centre in Telangana.
The board, led by additional director Kiran Kumar Inampudi, has binned the company’s main business objectives—previously focused on television—and replaced them with AI, machine learning, deep learning, natural language processing, computer vision, robotics and data science. The new mandate reads like a Silicon Valley pitch deck, promising “AI-powered products, decision-support systems, automation tools, analytics platforms and other intelligent software systems” for everything from healthcare to government.
The transformation comes with housekeeping. The company has accepted the resignation of its statutory auditor, Hitesh Shah & Associates, and appointed Bilimoria Mehta & Co in its place. More tellingly, it has withdrawn applications for in-principle approval to issue 1.5 crore equity shares and 6.8 crore convertible warrants—suggesting the television business’s fundraising plans are now obsolete.
Shareholders will vote on the changes through a postal ballot, with e-voting running from 3 December to 5 January. Krina Gokulkumar Shah, a practising company secretary, will scrutinise the process.
The proposed Telangana data centre, the company claims, will create a “strategic sovereign compute platform” supporting India’s national AI ambitions whilst strengthening digital, defence, governance, enterprise and archival infrastructure. Whether viewers of Sri Adhikari Brothers’ television content will follow them into the cloud remains to be seen.
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OpenAI researcher Zoe Hitzig resigns over ChatGPT ad plans
Zoe Hitzig says an ad-driven model could put user privacy and AI integrity at risk.
CALIFORNIA: OpenAI researcher Zoe Hitzig has resigned from the company, citing concerns about the introduction of advertising in ChatGPT. Hitzig, who spent two years working on AI development and governance, announced her departure in a guest essay for The New York Times, just as the company began testing ads.
Hitzig’s main concern is not the presence of ads itself, but the long-term financial pressure they could create. While OpenAI maintains that ads will be clearly labelled and will not influence the AI’s responses, she argues that dependence on ad revenue can eventually change how a company operates.
She also expressed concern about the vast amount of sensitive data OpenAI holds, questioning whether the company can resist the tidal forces that push businesses to monetise private information.
“I resigned from OpenAI on Monday. The same day, they started testing ads in ChatGPT. OpenAI has the most detailed record of private human thought ever assembled. Can we trust them to resist the tidal forces pushing them to abuse it?” she wrote in a post on X.
Her warning points to a growing tension between business priorities and ethical responsibility, raising the question of whether a company can deliver objective AI responses while also keeping advertisers happy. It also underscores concerns around data privacy, as OpenAI handles vast amounts of personal information, creating risks that go beyond those faced by earlier tech platforms. At the same time, there are fears about future integrity, with financial pressures potentially pushing AI systems to favour engagement over accuracy or safety.
As ChatGPT moves from a purely subscription-based model toward a more commercial approach, the industry is watching closely. For Hitzig, the shift represents a fundamental change in OpenAI’s mission, raising concerns that the drive for profit could eventually compromise the integrity of the technology.
