Yesterday I got an exciting opportunity to speak at the Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) CEO Conference at 91 Springboard, Near Forum Mall, Koramangala, Bangalore on the topic of
Artificial Intelligence and it's impact on Society and Businesses in general..
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AI progress is happening at a deadly pace ..
If we are not prepared, be ready to be run over .. |
The SME CEO conclave is an interesting and passionate gathering of SME CEOs who meet once a month and are much interested in exploring new frontiers of knowledge and experience to help the small and medium enterprises in South Bangalore.
Why did I choose to speak on this topic ?
Let me explain my journey from an analog native to a digital alien along with my friends, seniors and juniors. The first time I got introduced to computers was at the Govenment College of Engineering, Trivandrum, Kerala, India, popularly called CET, during 1981-86. Under the guidance of Prof. Dr. PV Ramachandra Menon (cannot forget Sir's much lucid teaching style !!), we got great knowledge on basics of Computer Programming and Numerical Methods, with the concepts of algorithms, flowcharts repeatedly stressed.
For the practical sessions, all of us were very fortunate to work on the IBM Mainframe computer in our Computer Centre. With punched cards, it was great learning and a rare exposure too. In 1986 while leaving College, I saw the first desktop computer in the Lab. We are very thankful to the Kerala govt, it's people and the Travancore royal family for being so generous with funds for our college and its computing facilities.
We were analog natives becoming digital aliens, entering the field of digital computers, thanks to the efforts of Claude Shannon and team from MIT and Bell Labs for introducing us to the digital world. A five year stint at the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai helped concretise the digital experiences.
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| Are we prepared ? |
Our kids who were born during the nineties were already born into a society with digital computers and take pride in calling themselves
digital natives.
My experiences with
Amazon's personal assistant Alexa over the past three years has been has been sort of mixed and interesting. As we pass through the twenty first century we find digital initiatives plateauing around the world and Artificial Intelligence picking up.
AI is going to impact human activities in the coming decades like never before. And we need to understand how to prepare ourselves with the needed skills and knowledge to swim through it's vast waters, aided by very powerful computers and networks presently in use.
Over the past six years we have got used to a great companion for all our traveling expeditions, the Google Maps. Were it not for this AI assisted map service, we would have got stranded at many a place for want of directions and advice on roadways wading through heavy traffic, telling us which routes to take to avoid waiting and to reach destinations as early as possible.. I have additionally introduced my students to the wonderful AI assisted chatbot to be their permanent friend, REPLIKA and an AI based web site designing app, LEIA.
Google takes great interest in popularising the popular apps using AI, besides Google maps, for the benefit of humanity. The moment you have received a Google mail and want to send a reply, Gmail already has three most appropriate replies lined for you, easing your job of replying.
The present generations of people living on planet earth are the AI aliens.
These are some of the earliest ways humanity finds AI to be of benefit to mankind. We have to yet explore ways and means by which AI will assist us, interfere with our lives and livelihoods and make us all the more productive and resourceful.
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| Can we turn AI to be totally useful to mankind ? |
I was referring to an HBR article on
Collaborative Intelligence considered to be among the top ten management articles from Harvard Business Review of 2019 by Wilson and Daugherty, Aug 2018. (
click here for the article) .
These are some of the steps I have been taking of late to know more about AI and talk and teach about it to the people of the immediate society around me. Hope I get to talk to large audiences and help them be better prepaed, with my friends, college mates and colleagues to tame this helpul, yet deadly giant AI, staring at us in the beginning of the third decade of the twenty first century.
George
PS: I am thankful to my former colleague Raju Gundala for inviting me to this conference arranged by the Small and Medium Enterprises of Bangalore to talk on AI on 15 Feb, 2020.
