New Delhi, Oct. 7 -- At an AI hardware "buildathon", Nehal Joshi, 40, founder of Bengaluru-based education startup Lernok, rediscovered his inner child. His team combined a webcam, computer vision and the chess engine Stockfish to analyse an ordinary chessboard and explain chess positions in English or Hindi, without any expensive digital equipment, and, Joshi claims, without an internet connection.

The chessboard offers a glimpse of AI's move beyond the screen and into the objects around us. A television show had given us this glimpse of this years ago. In the sitcom, Small Wonder, Victoria, aka Vicki, a robot built to resemble a young girl, lived with the Lawson family as their daughter. Her literal-mindedness made comedy out of a fami...