Part 17
The first comment from Mr B Sambamurty, a great friend and greater banker whose last official job was director and CEO, IDRBT, an RBI institution, was how AI will help urban and rural poor.
This deserves a detailed response. This also allows us to see benefits of AI.
AI will change agriculture along with IOT and connectivity. Right crops, right amount of nutrients at right time, less costs, good marketing, good technology and good forecasting – we have improved a lot in forecasting weather, production and markets- all these will be possible. Individual handholding will be done by AI. Right information will be available and guidance and alerts for activities will be provided. This will increase productivity and income.
AI will change education. It will help you in improving on multiple intelligences, increasing awareness, motivating for public goodness and innovation, and providing each individual with tailored knowledge. It will be a mentor and guide. It will help in reaching rural areas. We need simple education centers not the current expensive ones. It will simply be a computer communication and library center all digital.
Health is already seeing a lot of improvements with watches and tele-consult. Diagnosis will be done either at the onset of a disease or even before. Individualized treatments, medicines, life style and 24/7 monitoring will be possible.
Health can become better. Life Span will increase.
AI will simplify all applications and guide individuals to use them. No one will be left out because of digital distance. AI will talk to people in their local language.
AI will alert government about needs of people, assist in good policies, publicize bad policies – no public demonstrations needed, – will assist government with implementations reaching everyone. Individual security will improve. Privacy will die.
So if there is a social policy and concern with people and administrators, AI will implement it correctly. We will eliminate intermediaries. Poor will get benefits correctly. Distribution of food materials can be streamlined. A lot of operational improvements are possible.
Part 18
To achieve these benefits, we need support mechanisms and mindset changes.
Regulators will be replaced by AI. human regulators need intelligence and foresight. They will build policies with the help of AI. People need insights also. Benevolent structures are needed not audit structures. The village panchayats need to get more power. Money transfers will be automated. We the people have more at stake. Can we take more responsibility to make AI safe and beneficial?
Looks sci fi. Definitely it needs more jobs.
Looks utopian, right.
But our politicians, bureaucrats, industry persons and power mongers will not allow these to happen. Because they lose control and power. So we need to see that there is not a slip between cup and lip.
The million-dollar question how do we handle the development and use on one side and destructions on the other side.
A lot of responses came from many. Most are relieved that AI has many beneficial roles.
My friend, class mate and a great engineer at HAL comments
? for highlighting the advantages of AI. I was not aware off that it can help in Education also.
My response is
It will change education to what you need, what society needs, what is useful and beneficial to you and society at your pace bringing multimedia, VR and AR from across the world removing fake information and remaining neutral- no prejudice or bias.
Looks remarkable, right?
My lawyer friend from kochin Mr Jayakar comments
After reading the above, AI is endearing. Wonder how it will help the courts
My response is
It will change the system.
One speed up justice. No adjournments.
Two all information available and transparent to all.
Three governance will be much better.
Four corruption will reduce.
Five judgements will be clear not verbose.
I have got more comments and will discuss tomorrow.
Part 19
Comments by Dr R . N. Mathur , previously in charge of world bank TEQIP program and currently President of EQUATE, NGO in education and training :
Sir, A few concepts other than AI are emerging that are capable of changing the shape of the future, few are existing and some are new but have very heavy potential to change shape and size of future technologies and the way we are functioning today; they are of course, AI, IOT, Machine learning and data sciences. Do you see any relationship in and among these four?
My response
In the earlier days, technologies appeared singly over intervals of time and not in clusters. Examples are steam boilers and later engines followed much later with electricity- alternating current and Niagara power plant by Nicholas Tesla. This was in 1895. This was followed by Electronics in 1942 ans computers in 1960. Each technology grew slowly, developed devices and applications over a period of decades. But past decade saw many technologies developing simultaneously particularly in 2008. These are terra hertz computing, terra bytes of memory, GPUs, cloud and edge computing, terra hertz RF, IOT, big data, analytics, blockchain, machine learning, mobiles, 5G, etc. These developments are interconnected, not stand alone. We use IOT and ML and mobile plus watch for health monitoring.
Mobile apps made usage easier. Thousands of applications in many sectors opened up. This also opened up thousands of startups. We have a tsunami of developments and opportunities. Mobile, remote, online, video, VR and AR, data driven, and connected will be the new norm of life and activities. New jobs are emerging. Now you can see the large-scale complexities in our life. It will change us.
I will respond to your second and important comment tomorrow.
Some points discussed today are repeats. But done again for completeness.
Part 20
There was an error in my yesterday’s post. I mentioned 2008 it should be 2007. Some important happening events are
1.2007 –iPhone with large flash memory
2.Hadoop, making “big data” possible for all
3. open-source platform for writing and collaborating on software, called GitHub.
4. September 26, 2006, Facebook, a social networking site that had been confined to users on college campuses and at high schools, was opened to everyone at least thirteen years old with a valid e-mail address,
5. In 2007, a micro-blogging company called Twitter, was spun off as its own separate platform and also started to scale globally.
6.Change.org, the most popular social mobilization website, emerged in 2007
7. In late 2006, Google bought YouTube, and in 2007 it launched Android, an open-standards platform for devices
8. 2007, AT&T, the iPhone’s exclusive connectivity provider, invested in something called “software-enabled networks”— thus rapidly expanding its capacity to handle all the cellular traffic created by this smartphone revolution.
9. in 2007, Amazon released the Kindle,
10. In 2007, Airbnb was conceived in an apartment in San Francisco.
11. In late 2006, the Internet crossed one billion users worldwide,
12.it was also in 2007 that David Ferrucci, who led the Semantic Analysis and Integration Department at IBM’s Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York, and his team began building a cognitive computer called Watson
13. In 2007, Intel introduced non-silicon materials—known as high-k/metal gates —into microchips for the first time.
14.-2007 was the beginning of an exponential rise in solar energy, wind, biofuels, LED lighting, energy efficient buildings, and the electrification of vehicles.
2017
2017 was driven largely by three technologies – Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT) and Blockchain – and all three have gained traction.
2.Nvidia took the wraps off a new DGX-2 system it claims is the first to offer multi-petaflop performance in a single server.
The best example to show integration of technologies is the autonomous vehicle -car. It integrates mechanical systems with electrical and control, cloud and edge computing, online and communications and AI. I have been seeing the fact that engineering students have understood this integration design and construction. I see they have great ideas and many projects hundreds are being built in robotics. We are seeing many medical projects including smart wheel chairs, many on smart agriculture with IOT and mobiles, and even quadcopters. They think ahead. Many projects which got prizes are listed in our website. Www.faer.ac.in
We will see the second question of Dr. Mathur tomorrow.
Part 21
Second question:
My other question and a worry is that many people say that jobs that technology will generate are not existing today, so what will they be and how do we prepare our manpower to face such challenges??? Dr Mathur
My response
This is tough to predict completely. The first thing to remember is IT as we know is dead. We need more skills – multiple skills at a higher level not simple coding, more of designing and architecting. Basic problem understanding skills like cognition, perception and thinking need to be cultivated with many case studies and applications. But already we are seeing many shoots of these. People are designing and developing millions of apps. IOT is being used in health, medicine, retail, and will move to education and agriculture.
Digital is still in place in less than 30% of activities. Jobs are there. You can’t do anything without digital. So that is the first skill I will suggest. Sensors, IOT, big data and analytics integration has millions of jobs. These plus a knowledge of interpretation of results will create jobs. No use learning statistical formulas, no use of writing programs to use the formulas. Packages and tools are available and connected to programming languages. So specialize in interpretation, selection of right models etc. for getting a job
We are seeing lakhs of problems popping up daily in several sectors calling for attention
A third major skill is to apply ML in many real-life situations.
Jobs in communications, RF,5G or 6G are in millions. We need to build radio networks for 5G.
AI will provide jobs for millions. We need to build from the scratch. So skills for languages, cognition, psychology, behavior sciences will be needed by AI designers.
Digital twins and cyber physical systems will open the doors for lakhs of designers.
The people first policy will bring in focus communications skills, interpersonal skills, global citizen skills and very importantly values and ethics.
Ethical AI will be an important area to work on. Similarly, security will become a major area with a lot of jobs.
Compliance will be complicated. So, we need new theory and applications for compliance. So there are millions of jobs for the next five years.
We need to be creative not routine file pushers and clerks.
We need to become problem generators not just problem solvers.
Part 22
Thanks for your encouraging responses. Let us look at a question from a young engineering student.
“thank you for your insights again.
I wonder, with the emphasis on AI and machines in the future, about the importance of programming. Could it be that programming is introduced to children in elementary school? Could it substitute the math curriculum to some extent, such that children learn to solve fundamental arithmetic by writing code for it?”
My response is
Simple principle to follow is
Fundamental concepts are much more important and needed than tools. We use programs to solve problems. But procedures are syntax. What we need is semantics. We need to understand assumptions and also how the physics of the problem is interacting . Similarly, interpretations are needed. So semantics is needed to be understood. Syntax can be automated.so emphasis should be to learn the structure, models and mechanics of the problem.
Coding is better to learn early but don’t skip arithmetic, geometry, logic, algebra, and analysis. They are more important. We will discuss problem generation later. Hope it is clear.
Part 23
Prof Subbareddy of SJC Institute of technology, who is passionate about our technology barrier reduction program of FAER for rural high school students has a question. It is
Good morning sir,
Nice description for an excellent question. Sir can you please describe why mechanical engineering slowdown happen and now a days most of children are not attracted towards conventional things mechanical machines they are really attracted towards smart things.
My response is
The reason is simple. We are still in early 20th century curriculum and unaware of latest happenings. This is no disrespect to you.
Consider the fact that your batch of students won our scholar award. Because, their project integrated several aspects and disciplines. All our awards went to interdisciplinary projects. We get more than 400 proposals in a year. Most proposals are innovative. Students presented their projects online. Many proposals are from rural and small city colleges. You can see the list in our web site. I feel that engineering education is stuck in the past but students are good and look to the future.
Let me take mechanical. It started when steam boilers and engines were developed. There was opportunity for design and maintenance. When electrical power plants came, mechanical education stayed away from electrical aspects of power plants. When control came in, mechanical stayed away. Electronics brought a lot of developments and was nicely ignored by pure mechanical branch. We invented mechatronics branch, but it is not very popular. What is the impact of computers on mechanical? Marginal. All industries use computers, control, ERP- enterprise resource planning an integrated software-, CAD and CIM – computer aided design, computer integrated manufacturing -extensively but the impact and changes in curriculum is again marginal not integrated. Even energy was not looked at, only thermodynamics is studied. So renewable energy did not find place in most curriculum.
My request please look at how students of mechanical engineering learn and work on robotics and IOT – internet of things connecting devices together on an internet just like people being connected by internet-. We have ignored agriculture implements and tools in our scheme. When we suggested several projects in the eighties on agriculture implements, students took them. But faculty scoffed at the projects.