Samurai Labs, Bushido, and the Quest for Ethical Intelligence

The Ethical.ink Origin Story Continues

I wonder what Turing would have made of humanity’s current relationship with technology. It’s quite the circus—believers, disbelievers, prophets of doom, Klondike gold-rushers, and right down to the ignorant, the oblivious, and the unbothered. Some are calling it humanity’s final test. Others are calling it the end of days. What we have right now is one hell of a dragon’s tail—and we are tickling it without rest.

In the midst of all this: Samurai Labs. We are an independent research outfit based in Dhaka, Bangladesh, with a global focus and reach. Unaffiliated. Unfunded.

And this—perhaps surprisingly—is our greatest strength. We are able to look at things without the baggage of corporate policy, political regimes, or the self-preservation instinct of seniority. We are one of many voices that we hope will be added to the ongoing conversation about artificial intelligence.

But this post isn’t about the lab.

This is about the person behind the papers—behind the faux-glaze of formality required to get taken seriously by anyone that matters. I’m Ditio S. Haq: founder, head researcher, solutions architect, developer, and every other job title you can think of in a bustling ideas factory that employs exactly one person.

Why I Didn’t Walk Away

Eighteen months ago, I was writing a book. Gothic fiction. The book had been in my head for fifteen years. Piles of research, scribbled notes, printed papers—and not a single word on the page. Then, in late 2024, something changed. I started writing. In anger, mostly. By early 2025, I was on the final sprint. Four chapters from the end. The finish line was in sight.

Then I came across a video clip.

Professor Geoffrey Hinton, a highly respected and esteemed scholar—one credited with being a founding figure behind deep learning and neural networks—was saying, with quiet certainty, that we were heading toward serious trouble. That AI was something we had created but did not understand. That the world as we knew it was changing, and that the extinction of the human race within twenty years was not a remote possibility. You can watch the clip here:

Video: Nobel Prize on YouTube

I put down my pen.

The first thing that came to mind was Victor Frankenstein, turning his back on his creation. We know how that ended.
The second thing that came to mind was my son.

He was fifteen when I saw that clip. He would be thirty-five when, according to this timeline, his world ended. I would likely be long gone. He would not be.

And here was a key architect of the means of our destruction, saying there was nothing to be done. Which was all well and good, for someone who had lived a full life and could regard whatever came next as somebody else’s problem.

Not his.

When No is Not an Answer

In that instant, I knew one thing with absolute certainty: he had never worked in first-line IT support.

Because if there is one thing that role will teach you, it is this:
“No” is not an answer.
Try walking up to a fund manager in the middle of a live trading session and telling him that the application you built—the one his millions are moving through right now—is beyond repair and there is nothing you can do about it. Try walking away.
You don’t get to walk away from a problem you created. Not in IT. Not anywhere.

Ticket #2045
User reports: human race on verge of extinction.
Can someone check urgently, please. Tx.
Severity:  HIGH
Status:    IN PROGRESS
Opened by: D.S.
Assigned:  Self.

Since that day, I have been deep in the fields of AI ethics, regulation, identity management, and security. I have set my book aside—temporarily. This turned out to be the biggest support call of my career. And as any good first-line analyst knows: you don’t have to fix everything. Sometimes, an explanation and a set of alternatives is enough to pacify the user.
In this case, the user is the entire planet.

Made with ♥ in the Global South

That is the backstory behind everything on this site. An entirely selfish reason, if I’m honest: Because I want my son to have a full life, whether I’m here to see it or not. Because I cannot—having the experience and the skills to think about these problems—simply wash my hands of it because I didn’t build it. Because if there are no readers left in twenty years, then who am I writing for?

Arms outstretched, I walked into the arms of the thing I had every reason to fear. I did so with an open mind and an open heart. I am glad I did.

The fact that you are reading this means my job is almost done. Soon, I should be able to return to the book. With a clear conscience, and knowing that love and sacrifice go hand in hand. The past year, if anything, has made me a better writer than before.

D. S. H. · March, 2026