Tag: Artificial Intelligence

Need to figure out jobs of future in times of AI, says Kris Gopalakrishnan

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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The youth need to figure out the jobs of the future and garner the required skills as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and other such technological advances may to cause job losses, said Kris Gopalakrishnan, co-founder and former CEO of Infosys, on Saturday.

He said AI, machine learning, neuroscience and brain science are some of the subjects the people need to recognise and catch up with.

“Every new technology can potentially replace people,” Gopalakrishnan said here, speaking at the India Today Mind Rocks Youth Summit 2018.

“We need to figure out what jobs of the future are, the skills that would required and ensure we acquire those skills,” he said.

Gopalakrishnan, who is currently the Chairman of Axilor Ventures, said it is the best time now to grow and benefit from AI.

Developing algorithms for machine learning or creating new chips and processors for machines are some of the jobs that the youth can pursue, he said.

He said the intersection of biology and computing is currently an “amazing area for rise and this is going to transform every aspect of our life, every industry and every business.”

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

IBM, IIT Bombay collaborate to accelerate AI research in India

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Tech giant IBM on Wednesday announced a partnership with IIT Bombay to advance artificial intelligence (AI) research in India.

As part of the partnership, the varsity will join IBM’s “AI Horizons Network”, an international consortium of leading universities working with the software major to develop technologies needed to help fulfil the promise of AI.

IIT Bombay will pair its faculty and top graduate students with leading AI scientists from IBM Research to advance and accelerate the application of AI, machine learning (ML), natural language processing and related technologies to business and industry.

“Through this collaboration with IIT Bombay, we aim to accelerate the pace of innovation for AI in India, working hand-in-hand with some of the top scientists and research scholars in the country,” Arvind Krishna, Senior-Vice President, Hybrid Cloud and Director, IBM Research, said in a statement.

This area of research will be critical for developing new AI applications in key industries such as financial services, retail and healthcare, which rely heavily on rich, multi-modal content.

The collaboration will also work in the field of training and building domain-specific AI agents (chatbots), which are designed to aid humans in complex decision making such as trading and investment choices in financial services.

Additionally, work is planned to explore new, domain-neutral training approaches which could enable faster, more efficient training of AI systems.

“This partnership will enable IIT Bombay faculty to work in collaboration with researchers around the world on the frontiers of AI focusing on industrially relevant problems and will provide access to large data sets,” said Prof. Devang Khakhar, Director, IIT Bombay.

This collaboration makes IIT Bombay the first institution outside North America to join the IBM “AI Horizons Network”.

Globally, eight leading universities are working with IBM, in key areas designed to accelerate the development of AI technologies, and others, as well as their application to big societal challenges, ranging from aiding the understanding of disease, education and cybersecurity.

They include Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Renesselaer Polytechnic Institute, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, University of Michigan, University de Montreal, University of Maryland at Baltimore County, UC San Diego and University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Cognizant employees get skills premium allowance, says report

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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IT giant Cognizant has introduced skills premium allowance for its employees to encourage them to build and improve their skills, reported The Times of India.

The allowance has been given this year to 40,000 employees who were willing to expand their knowledge in to newer areas. This includes fields such as machine learning and artificial intelligence, TOI reported on Tuesday.

“Global demand for the skills we specialise in is increasing even as the tech talent shortage is growing. Skills premium allowance is one of the means towards that end and has come to include a wide range of digital skills and growing number of employees. It has helped us make compensation more competitive for associates with niche skills,” James Lennox, Cognizant’s global chief people officer was quoted as saying in the report.

The development, the report added, also pointed towards the firm’s performance in the recent times. As per the report, Cognizant saw an annualised attrition rate of 20.3 percent in this year’s first quarter, way higher than the industry average. This in turn has led to higher rewards and widening salary disparity among the staff, the report further mentioned.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Samsung opens AI research centre in New York

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Samsung Electronics Co has launched here its sixth artificial intelligence (AI) research centre which will focus on robotics research, the company said on Sunday.

The tech giant is seeking to strengthen its AI capabilities and has opened research institutes in South Korea, Britain, Canada, Russia and the Silicon Valley in the US, Yonhap news agency reported.

The new centre, which opened on Friday, is led by Daniel D. Lee, a leading AI and robotics scientist who joined the company in June.

“New York is one of the world’s great cities, and with this new facility, we will be able to leverage the tremendous talent in the area,” Lee said in a statement.

“We also look forward to collaborating with top universities and academic centres in the region.”

H. Sebastian Seung, a renowned neuroscientist, serves as the centre’s chief research scientist.

The company earlier announced a plan to boost its AI research capabilities and employ about 1,000 specialists by 2020.

“What we need now is to focus on creating new values that make people’s lives easier and more convenient by harnessing the power of AI in Samsung’s products and services,” said Kim Hyun-suk, President and Head of Samsung Research.

“To do this, our global AI Centres, including the New York AI Centre, must play a pivotal role.”

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

AI start-ups blossom in India, need big dollars to grow

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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A decade ago, Artificial Intelligence (AI) was unknown to many of us mortals. Lately, however, AI and related buzzwords like Machine Learning (ML) or Big Data Analytics are more visible — staring at us from clumsy signage boards hanging at the entrance of private IT training institutes.

The bare fact is that this new category of intelligence is undoubtedly diversifying human thinking rather than replacing it as some of us fear. The technology, especially the conversational one, has shown tremendous potential — the banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) sector being the early adopter.

Sensing the immense opportunity ahead, nearly 200 AI start-ups in India are today innovating and creating AI-based solutions for various industries.

Chatbots are slowly becoming the default customer support solution for most services and Mumbai-based Haptik is one such AI-based platform — building applications for consumers, publishers and enterprises.

Having grown 10 times in revenue in just one year, its partners and clients include Coca-Cola, HDFC Life, Samsung, Edelweiss Tokio, Goibibo, Amazon Pay, ClubMahindra, ICICI Bank and Tata Docomo, among others.

According to Kartik Poddar, Business Head, Haptik, they are amazed as well as encouraged by industry’s response and awareness regarding AI technologies in the country.

“The days of concept-selling are over and organisations are deploying AI tech for real use-cases within their businesses, with substantial knowledge regarding its general capabilities and purpose-oriented utility,” Poddar told IANS.

More than 50 per cent of Indian retail companies will be operating on AI by 2020, said PeopleStrong, a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) HR technology and solutions company.

According to an Accenture analysis, AI has the potential to add $957 billion to India’s economy in 2035.

“We are just scratching the surface of the possibilities and applications of AI in business. There is huge demand and a lot of open source tools are available for start-ups to use and build interesting applications on,” informed Poddar.

For Arun Gupta, Chief Executive Officer at MoMagic Technologies — an AI and Big Data-driven mobile tech firm — India is currently witnessing an all-time high and growing online user base, especially the millennials.

The abundance of data and increased need of its error-free analysis has forced companies to turn towards technologies like AI, resulting in more and more start-ups diving into AI-driven business offerings.

According to Gupta, the digital wave is bringing in a behavioural change and technologies like AI and ML play a key role in analysing that change via the data captured

“In a country like India, with its huge population and vastly diverse demographic spread and customers available on multiple connected devices, AI today presents a big opportunity for businesses across sectors,” Gupta told IANS.

The cost of building AI-powered experiences has been reduced with disruptive technologies being democratised.

Poddar said that companies are mandated to work with innovative start-ups to develop and implement AI-driven solutions to meet specific business challenges.

“We have seen some really interesting AI applications in retail, e-commerce, healthcare, travel and banking, etc. Even the government sector has warmed up to incorporating AI-driven solutions in various public sector initiatives,” the Haptik executive told IANS.

Pune-headquartered digital entertainment firm JetSynthesys is not only developing in-house technology for AI in gaming but also scouting opportunities for new AI start-ups which can address various problems in India.

“Adoption of AI is definitely on the rise so there is space for the right start-up. Also, start-ups in India need to benchmark against global activity in this space which has also heated up significantly in the past two years,” noted Rajan Navani, MD and CEO, JetSynthesys.

According to him, manufacturing, media and entertainment, logistics, urbanisation and smart cities — along with education and healthcare — will benefit significantly from adoption of AI in the country.

A new Tata Communications study says AI is now being viewed as a new category of intelligence that can complement existing categories of emotional, social, spatial and creative intelligence.

“What is transformational about multiplicity is that it can enhance cognitive diversity, combining categories of intelligence in new ways to benefit all workers and businesses,” said study co-author Vinod Kumar, CEO and Managing Director at Tata Communications.

The seeds of AI are being sown in India and start-ups await big financing deals and dollars from venture capitalists which helped neighbouring China harbour one of the biggest clusters of AI start-ups in the world, after the US.

“Big industry players that have the financial strength and business experience to invest in AI research and development typically lead the strategic charge on global competitiveness for their country,” the Accenture analysis noted.
Will they take cognizance of the thriving Indian start-up scene in AI which has the potential to “innovate” for the world?

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Over 50% Indian retail companies to operate on AI by 2020, says survey

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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More than 50 percent of Indian retail companies will be operating on Artificial Intelligence (AI) by 2020, revealed a survey by PeopleStrong, a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) HR technology and solutions company.

The survey showed that nearly 60 percent of Indian retail companies have replaced legacy systems and started storing their Human Resource (HR) data on cloud.

Presently, only 24.49 percent spend more than $10 per employee and another 45 percent of these organisations’ report $5-$10 spends which is bound to increase soon as their legacy systems move to cloud-based transformative technology.

“There is a tremendous potential for this number to see a hike in the coming months. We are already seeing the change in the mindset of CHROs for adopting new age HR Technology solutions shifting away from Traditional ERPs,” Prakash Rao, Founding Member and VP, HCM, PeopleStrong, said in a statement.

However, the biggest challenge that stands in the way of this adoption is disjointed technology and systems within retail enterprises, Rao said.

According to the survey, over 53 percent of chief human resources officer’s (CHRO) representing over 500 plus retail enterprises in India believe that their HR verticals are still six quarters away from embracing AI in their day-to-day work.

Nearly 60 percent of CHRO’s blamed it on the absence of seamless flow of data between different HR functions.

However, the survey conducted on 1,200 retail companies to understand their HR functions, highlighted that the Indian organisations are expected to bridge this gap by 2020.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Facebook AI significantly improves Urdu to English translation

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Artificial Intelligence (AI) researchers at Facebook have set a new record in improving translation from Urdu to English.

Neural Machine Translation (NMT) is the field concerned with using AI to do translations in any language.

The team from Facebook AI Research (FAIR) has seen a dramatic improvement in its results, the Forbes reported on Saturday.

“To give some idea of the level of advancement, an improvement of 1 BLEU point (a common metric for judging the accuracy of MT) is considered a remarkable achievement in this field; our methods showed an improvement of more than 10 BLEU points,” the team said in a paper that described translation from Urdu to English.

Facebook AI researchers seek to understand and develop systems with human-level intelligence by advancing the longer-term academic problems surrounding AI.

The research covers the full spectrum of topics related to AI, and to deriving knowledge from data: theory, algorithms, applications, software infrastructure and hardware infrastructure.

“Long-term objectives of understanding intelligence and building intelligent machines are bold and ambitious, and we know that making significant progress towards AI can’t be done in isolation,” said researchers from FAIR.

FAIR researchers have tested a new approach that teaches bots how to chit-chat like humans.

Facebook is making deep investments in AI technology and in May announced the next version of its open-source AI framework for developers.

Microsoft is currently leading when it comes to AI and Deep Neural Networks to improve real-time language translation.

Earlier this year, Microsoft brought machine learning to improve language translation for Hindi, Bengali and Tamil.

With Deep Neural Networks-powered language translation, the results are more accurate and the sound more natural.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Google bets on AI to tackle floods, diseases

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Tech giant Google today said it is working with multiple partners to use new-age technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to improve response time to natural disasters like floods as well as addressing healthcare challenges. Google Technical Project Manager (TensorFlow) Anitha Vijayakumar said the company has developed a system that uses AI for early and accurate flood warnings, including guiding over areas that are dangerous and prone to flooding.

Earlier this year, Google had partnered with India’s Ministry of Water Resources on a pilot for flood warning based on AI and ML.

She said the pilot was undertaken in areas prone to flooding and the “initial results are promising”.

Vijayakumar said the pilot can be extended to other parts of the country and expressed hope that the system will eventually be “able to give longer lead times to people, helping them seek safety”.

Floods have wreacked havoc across states this year, with Kerala being the latest. Hundreds have lost their lives, while thousands have been rendered homeless. More than 7.8 lakh people are estimated to be in relief camps.

Google, on its part, has launched a series of measures to provide help and assistance in the southern state. It has activated SOS alerts on Google search which captured all the emergency resources and response numbers in English and Malayalam.

“We also activated Person Finder in English and Malayalam, to help people search and track family and friends – on last count, there were 22,000 records in person finder. We also extended this information on Google Maps to aid the rescue efforts,” Rajan Anandan, Vice President of Google (South East Asia and India), said.

He added that on Google Tez (its payments platform), the company had launched a donation drive towards Kerala Chief Minister relief fund and so far, over 2.7 lakh people have contributed USD 1.1 million.

Also, Google.org and Googlers are contributing over USD 1 million to support the relief and recovery efforts.

Vijayakumar also said the company has partnered with organisations in India for using AI and ML to help detect diabetic retinopathy (DR), which could lead to blindness and puts nearly 415 million diabetic patients at risk worldwide.

She added that automated DR screening methods with high accuracy can assist doctors in evaluating more patients and quickly routing those who need help of a specialist.

This will prove beneficial to patients, particularly among underserved populations.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

RBI forms committee on cryptocurrency; to supervise digital assets, blockchain and AI, says report

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has formed a special committee that would track technologies related to crypocurrencies, a report by Bitcoin.com said.

The committee will research, draft rules and will supervise the development of digital assets, blockchain and artificial intelligence applications in future, said the report on Tuesday.

While no formal announcement has been made by the central bank, a publication note said that it had gathered experts to improve its own ability in the blockchain field a month ago and had appointed a chief of the committee, according to the report.

Earlier in April, RBI had moved to bar banks and other entities that it regulates from having any linkages to virtual currency dealers.

Entities regulated by the RBI shall not carry out transactions with individuals or businesses dealing in virtual currency, the RBI said after issuing its April bi-monthly monetary policy report.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow