Exploring opportunities in Artificial Intelligence
Ishan Gupta
Depending on whom you're listening to, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is either a threat that will turn on its creators or is the saviour of humankind in the years to come. As with most things, the truth lies somewhere in the middle of these two options - AI is a technology that will act within its capacity to perform the functions that it is given. Even within the group of people who don't believe that AI will turn violent, many consider AI, with its potential to do repetitive or time-intensive work swiftly and accurately, as a threat to the global job market. If robots do the jobs of humans, what will humans do, they ask. The answer to that is simple - they will do the other jobs that robots can't.
In the last decade or so, swift advances in Machine Learning and Deep Learning technologies have led to AI making a quantum leap in its capacity to perform functions. AI can now decode natural language, translate in real-time, and even engage in limited conversation with human beings. It won't be long before it is capable of passing the Turing test absolutely. The increasing capacity of AI to learn and make decisions added to its existing abilities to work without rest and error-free would make it an ideal choice for doing the kind of manual labour that many are still are engaged in doing today.
What AI has shown little or no capacity to engage in thus far is creativity and innovation. It is unlikely to develop a sense of humour and probably would require centuries of development before it can approach the concept of thinking laterally and outside the box. AI will be much better suited to replace human beings in mass manufacturing, bringing greater synergy and efficiency into that domain than before. Doing so would lower the costs of manufactured goods, increase consumption, and raise the profits of such companies. This would increase these companies' productivity, and make them need more humans in marketing. Which is why certain research firms have indicated that AI will create more jobs than it eliminates, stating that by 2020, AI will generate 2.3 million jobs worldwide.
New avenues
A survey of 1,000 global organisations which deployed AI-based systems found that 80% of the surveyed firms had added more jobs, while two-thirds of the respondents indicated that there had been no reduction in jobs attributable to AI. For the most part, AI is being used to enhance and enable human employees to remove redundant mechanical and record-keeping aspects of their work, freeing them up and enabling them to be more productive.
The spike in demand for AI-proficient programmers is all the more remarkable because there is a dearth of qualified candidates capable of taking up these positions. According to a leading job portal, there is currently a ratio of 2.3 available roles for every suitable candidate. Applications of AI would also create a massive pool of opportunities.
Even in other industries, AI will create greater productivity that would enhance employment, not curtail it. There will be a greater need for humans who specialise in abstract thinking, creative tasks, and problem-solving, which will lead to job growth in these areas.
While these new jobs will be more lucrative than the ones that AI will take up, they will require substantial reskilling of the existing workforce. Hence, in the field of AI, it is important to focus more on improving the skills of the workforce, than be worried about the growing technology.
We should actively ask how we can make ourselves more productive and less mechanical in our work, and find ways to add problem-solving and analytical skills. Picking up AI programming would be a great choice, as this is easier to learn than one would imagine. So, what are you waiting for?
(The author is managing director - India, Udacity)
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SC stays CBI probe into West Bengal govt officials' role in teacher recruitment scam
New Delhi, Apr 29: The Supreme Court on Monday stayed a Calcutta High Court order directing the CBI to probe the role of West Bengal government officials in a teacher recruitment scam. It, however, refused to stay for now the cancellation of the appointment of over 25,000 teachers and non-teaching staff.
The top court was hearing a plea by the West Bengal government against a high court order invalidating the appointment of 25,753 teachers and non-teaching staff made by the School Service Commission (SSC) in state-run and state-aided schools.
A bench of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud, Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice Manoj Misra, however, refused to stay the high court order cancelling the appointments and said it will hear the matter on May 6.
Observing that taking away the jobs of about 25,000 persons is a serious matter, the top court asked if it is possible to segregate the valid and invalid appointments on the basis of the material available and who the beneficiaries of the fraud are.
"We will stay the direction which says the CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation) will undertake further investigation against officials in the state government," the bench said.
Calcutta High Court had said the CBI would undertake further investigations with regard to the persons in the state government involved in approving the creation of supernumerary posts to accommodate illegal appointments.
If necessary, the CBI will undertake custodial interrogation of such persons involved, it had said.
Challenging the order, the state government, in its appeal filed before the top court, said the high court cancelled the appointments "arbitrarily".
"The high court failed to appreciate the ramification of cancelling the entire selection process, leading to straightaway termination of teaching and non-teaching staff from service with immediate effect, without giving sufficient time to the petitioner state to deal with such an exigency, rendering the education system at a standstill," the plea said.
Calcutta High Court last week declared the selection process as "null and void" and directed the CBI to probe the appointment process. It also asked the central agency to submit a report within three months.
"All appointments granted in the selection processes involved being violative of articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution of India, are declared null and void and cancelled," the high court said in its April 22 order.
The high court said those appointed outside the officially available 24,640 vacancies, appointed after the expiry of the official date of recruitment, and those who submitted blank Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) sheets but obtained appointment to return all remunerations and benefits received by them with 12 per cent interest per annum within four weeks.
Observing that it had given "anxious consideration to the passionate plea" that persons who obtained the appointments legally would be prejudiced if the entire selection process was cancelled, the bench said it hardly had any choice left.
The high court held that all appointments involved were violative of articles 14 (equality before law) and 16 (prohibiting discrimination in employment in any government office) of the Constitution.
"It is shocking that, at the level of the cabinet of the state government, a decision is taken to protect employment obtained fraudulently in a selection process conducted by SSC for state-funded schools, knowing fully well that, such appointments were obtained beyond the panel and after expiry of the panel, at the bare minimum," the high court had said.
It said unless "there is a deep connection between the persons perpetuating the fraud and the beneficiaries" with persons involved in the decision-making process, such action to create supernumerary posts to protect illegal appointments is "inconceivable".
The division bench had also rejected a prayer by some appellants, including the SSC, for a stay on the order and asked the commission to initiate a fresh appointment process within a fortnight from the date of the results of the ongoing Lok Sabha elections.
The bench, constituted by the high court chief justice on a direction of the Supreme Court, had heard 350 petitions and appeals relating to the selection of candidates for appointment by the SSC in the categories of teachers of classes 9, 10, 11 and 12 and group-C and D staffers through the SLST-2016.
In its 282-page judgment, the high court had said retaining appointees selected through "such a dubious process" would be contrary to public interest.
