Hasashi Desai: Changes since 2049/10/06

Hasashi Desai (born June 23rd 2010) is an Indian journalist, streamer, political commentator, and activist. As part of World News Wire (WNW), Desai’s body of investigative journalism covers state and corporate use of artificial intelligence (AI), mass surveillance, predictive policing, and cybersecurity.

Born in Bangalore, Desai studied at the Xianggang Polytechnic University and began working as a data analyst for WNW in 2034, building tools for data mining operations and spearheading several of WNW’s long-form documentaries.

In 2041, Desai was promoted to editor-in-chief of WNW. He went missing in Brazil during field research for a documentary on G6, later resurfacing in Germany where he had claimed political asylum.

In 2043, Desai launched The Desai Summit, a weekly stream hosted on Vessel. As of 2049, The Desai Summit is one of the most popular streams in the world, with an estimated listener base of over 21 million subscribers.

Early life and educationPermalink

Hasashi Desai was born on June 23rd 2010 in Bangalore, India as the only child of Arjun Desai, an Indian newspaper editor, and Yang Hsiao-Yen, a Chinese angel investor active during the development of Bangalore’s IT industry. The couple separated in 2020 when Desai was ten years old, with Yang leaving India. In 2028, they reconciled and moved to Xianggang.

Desai completed a Bachelor of Science with honours in Computer Science and a Bachelor of Arts in Communication Design at the Xianggang Polytechnic University.

World News WirePermalink

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In 2034, Yang introduced Desai to Veronica Weill, who hired him as a data analyst for the recently launched open-source intelligence (OSINT) operation at World News Wire (WNW). Desai excelled at both implementing and managing data mining operations, earning him producer credits on several critically acclaimed WNW documentaries.

Desai also designed and built Pipeline, an internal tool for automatically finding topic matches between sources and constructing human-like knowledge graphs to help journalists connect disparate pieces of information. Pipeline was noted for being a major early use case of the PACOTTI architecture.

In 2035, Desai started focusing on the intersection between Beijing‘s tech scene and China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). He was a proponent of WNW’s hardline position against “corporations using and being used as soft power to bend the backs of governments along the BRI.” ^[1]

In 2036, Desai was promoted to investigative lead, pitching and helming several of WNW’s documentaries over the following years. In October 2039, Desai led the technical side of the WNW effort to process the data leak that exposed Lassgard Bioteknik’s role in the spread of Cariappa-Muren disease (CMD).

The State of G6Permalink

In May 2041, Desai was appointed to the position of WNW’s editor-in-chief following the resignation of his predecessor Sebastian Rummens. Desai assumed this was only to keep up appearances of a functioning editorial office while the network was being sold off to the Senanayake Group and decided to focus his remaining time and resources at WNW on a final long-form documentary. This documentary would explore G6 and the implications of its spread, a topic Desai was forced to keep hidden from WNW‘s shareholders by falsifying all records of the documentary’s production process.

Desai enlisted several of his colleages for the production of the G6 documentary, including Zhou Mei, Alan Hazelden, and Piumi Ariyawansa. The group coordinated their work through Vessel, with Desai making sure their data trail reflected that they were working on WNW’s regular opinion pieces.

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In June 2041, Desai travelled to Brazil to follow up on evidence that Omnius had moved G6 infrastructure into the country with no indication of where it had been installed. After visiting an unmapped town outside Rio de Janeiro, Desai cancelled his flight out of Brazil, halted his online activity, and all attempts to contact him were unsuccessful. ^[2]

In his absence, Desai’s colleagues were no longer operating under the cover of his position at WNW, which led to enforcement officers from the Senanayake Group discovering the group’s actions on June 14th 2041. In response, they distributed Desai’s documentary under the title The State of G6, adding his final notes on what he described as a “G6 town” and an epilogue speculating about his ultimate fate. ^[3]

The Desai SummitPermalink

In January 2042, Desai resurfaced in Germany, where he had claimed political asylum. This came after several of Desai’s colleagues who had worked with him on The State of G6 had disappeared, with rumours that Ariyawansa had been abducted by men dressed as immigration officers. It was initially believed that Desai had met a similar fate.

Over the following months, Desai’s behaviour became increasingly erratic due to his conviction that he was being watched by G6. On four separate occasions, Desai slipped away from the police officers guarding him and broke into neighbouring houses or closed shops, convinced that they were not real places, but “G6 hubs masquerading as local infrastructure.”

In April 2043, Desai restarted The Summit, a private newsletter he wrote to several hundred friends and associates in Xianggang between 2035 and 2039. In the first editions, he recapped his experiences in Brazil and how they “pushed him off the rails for a while,” describing his discovery of “enormous clusters of densely-packed G6 hubs, stretching for miles on end and meticulously arranged to resemble residential and commercial buildings connected by roads.”

In September 2043, Desai launched The Desai Summit as a weekly stream, hosting it on WNW’s surviving Vessel network and delving into conspiracy theories around G6. As the stream grew in popularity, Desai began to invite guests to discuss current events, politics, philosophy, comedy, hobbies, and numerous other topics. As of 2049, The Desai Summit is one of the most popular streams in the world, with an estimated listener base of over 21 million subscribers.

See alsoPermalink

• The Desai Summit
• World News Wire

ReferencesPermalink