About Me

I'm a builder at heart. I like turning ideas into working systems (software, tools, experiments) and learning by making.

I also do independent research: following questions, reading widely, and publishing when something holds up to scrutiny.

I'm drawn to technology, science, and philosophy together. Technology is how I build; science is how I test what's true; philosophy is how I stay honest about what we don't yet understand.

What I want that work to amount to, over the long run, is a real contribution to the mysteries of consciousness, not as a slogan but as a direction: using all three lenses to chip away at questions about mind, experience, and what it means to be aware.

This site is where I write and think in public. It's not a résumé, and I'm not pitching anyone.

Sarthak Karandikar

Some of what I've done

Over the past few years I've built and shipped AI products, including Sentient, an open-source proactive assistant, and co-founded Existence, which is now behind me. I've published independent research on AI for education and knowledge mapping, including work in IEEE and related venues, and I keep exploring how ideas from computer science, the sciences, and philosophy might eventually bear on consciousness. These days I'm building at a startup while continuing to research and write on my own.