‘Don’t depend too much on Artificial Intelligence’

KOCHI: The development and use of artificial intelligence (AI) has great potential. However, there are shortcomings if we depend on the machines too much, said Vijay Vijaysankar, IBM vicepresident, on Thursday. He was speaking at the fourth international conference on web services computing at SCMS College, Karukutty.
He said that for daily use, AI can be used in three sectors — transportation, medical services and legal advice.
Apart from Vijaysankar, five other speakers discussed and exchanged views on various web services, computing techniques, AI, machine learning and their applications used by academicians, researchers and practitioners.
“The most affected from the development of such technology will be the healthcare sector, which depends vastly on advanced machines. Currently, though the machines gather information of symptoms shown by patient, it is human doctors whose judgement makes the final call of diagnosis,” said Srikumar Pillai, SCMS professor.
The conference focused on AI and machine learning, an application that provides systems the ability to automatically learn and improve from experience without being explicitly programmed.
“Machines with this capability are able to record and learn its users’ preferences and tendencies, thus allowing it to programme itself to best suit the user. Student and teachers will find this to be of great use when using apps that cater to educational needs,’’ he said.
Vijaysankar said that when one asks a person for a cup of hot tea, the person instinctively knows what is to be provided.
“A machine on the other hand will require several other inputs such as temperature, quantity, proportion of milk and so on. This is simply one example showcasing the need to develop the current AI capabilities,’’ he said.