Srinagar, June 19 -- That call led to an interview. By the next morning, she was on a bus, heading out of the Valley with nothing but a bag and a sense of urgency.

Almost six years later, Dr. Shaista Anayat Naz is a postdoctoral fellow at IIM Amritsar, studying how artificial intelligence is reshaping human thought, emotion, and behaviour.

At the heart of her research is a set of difficult questions: Why are we growing emotionally attached to machines? What happens when people begin to trust AI more than themselves? And what do we lose when technology replaces memory, judgment, even intimacy?

Born and raised in Kashmir, Dr. Naz brings a rare perspective to the field of human-computer interaction. Her work sits at the intersection of ps...