Pinnacle of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Until recently, AI has been a neglected subject in the curriculum of most Indian Universities.  As times are changing, thanks to the frenzy of Machine Learning applications popping up everywhere, the interest in AI is gaining momentum.

My work on AI started, way back in 2001, but had to drop them, as there was lack of interest, applications, takers, market, and all...  So, whenever I get an opportunity for an invited talk (the topic would generally be of some jargon prevailing at that point of time - like Mobile Computing, Cloud Computing, Big Data, IoT etc..), I used to add a couple of slides on AI and will play to the gallery (as they say in Cricket Commentary). My objective was to spur interest on the subject.

I pepper the presentation with examples that the students can connect with. I therefore focus on applications of AI, and tell about how Facebook (as every student invariably has an account) uses algorithms such as DeepFace, IBM used Deep Blue, and now Watson - for creating a movie trailer (Morgan) etc...

I also give a brief history of AI, tell them the craze over today's programming languages such as Java - being an OOP language - were derived from Frames and Concepts (Ontologies) in AI.

Then coming back to AI, I also tell about the pinnacle of intellectual ability expected from AI systems, as we keep raising the bar of the required intelligence continuously. I introduce them to Alan Turing's test, (wherein a human tries to distinguish between a human and a machine through conversation) and then go on about the need for "contextual intelligence" that has been missing now, and go on and on and conclude with a still from the popular Tamil movie Enthiran, wherein a Robot tries to distinguish between a man and machine, which is probably the pinnacle of AI.

P.S: I used to wonder whether the story writer (and director) of the movie did this in full realization.

Chennai Floods and Probable Techno Solutions

Chennai Floods and the damages it had caused to life and lifeless things are enormous. Hope the people rebuilt it with zeal to make it a better place, withstanding any natural and man-made disasters in the future.

This post tries to dream or fantasize, how much could be done to minimize the pain and suffering of the people who were badly affected, by using the upcoming and future technologies.

1. Electrical Power 

The most fundamental element - as lots and lots of our equipment and devices, food and even water are dependent on electricity. So, we badly need a way to generate it with little manual power in case of emergency situations. A recent innovation unveiled by Manoj Bhargava that uses pedaling power to produce electricity is a good place to start with. A detailed article can be found here. Probably a leaner, efficient and compact machine for individual homes, if becomes available in future will be grabbed by many! 

2. Water 

People need clean and pure drinking water.In today's environment, the water is pumped up to the overhead tanks through electrically powered motors. So, electricity is required, and of course regular water supply is also required. With these two constraints in getting the drinking water, it's going to be tougher in these situations. Even if we manage to get, purification will be another problem, unless people use the traditional LPG stove and boil the water for 20+ minutes. Low-energy water purification systems that may come into play in future can be found here. 

3. Communication and Home Delivery 

With energy being available, communication would eventually be available. Proposals to use balloons, and drones by Google and Facebook respectively aim to use the Stratosphere for providing Internet Connectivity. Whether they will be able to come out of red-tape and be able to offer these services remains, but probably will be allowed to function under emergency situations.  Also, Amazon's idea of using drones for delivery of items such as medicines will come in handy in these kind of natural calamity. 

The Year 2014 - for me

As usual, this year too, I am starting with my thoughts on the previous year, especially at my personal front.

General Observations - Positive & Neutral

• Realized that our workplace is slowly adopting paper-less practices and an important step of HR records moving online
• Got a first-hand experience in using various crypto-tokens
• Managed to organize 2 big technical events - One on DNS Security; and another on Digital Signatures and PKI
• Realized that to reach people and propagate your message, you should use all mediums. So, Started relying heavily on Social Media (Facebook and Twitter) for promotion of our concepts and efforts
• Finally visited US and UK this year, and had already shared my experiences in this post. 
• Smartphone era finally heralded in our homes, (and relatives) this year
• Wondered what will happen if Google decides to close Blogger one day ?? So, decided to have my blog posts replicated in wordpress too
• Guided around 10+ Interns this year (though some of them were been my interns since last year) Also met several students who visit our campus each year as a ritual 
• Places Visited: Mumbai, Kollam, Shimla, Noida, Los Angeles, London, and New Delhi

General Observations - Disappointments

• Much expected elevation in my career did not happen this year too, despite list of significant achievements to showoff had been increasing!
• Realized the pathetic situation of M.Tech studies in many not-so-popular institutes! One institution withdrew its intern student saying that the problem assigned was too difficult! Another institution's students got the work published in 'paid' conferences due to their academic pressures! However have to admit that, met a few bright students also.
• Did my best as last ditch efforts to increase the use of the system that I had been building for last few years (4 years). Spent significant efforts in the first half year working on it, tried using AI techniques, changing the UI, increasing interaction mechanisms, and had to also have to overcome difficulties in hosting and integrating with social media and also shifting the connectivity.  But despite all these, more barriers were raised, and it dawned that the current approach is no longer going to be feasible
• Quite frustrated with one of our client, who were adamant on a round-about technique for doing an activity, and even that too did not materialize due to several procedural and technical issues. - An absolute time & effort waster! 
• Figured out how a famous  company's (It had a great name of an important celestial object, with out which life is not possible) software product that was offered at very fair prices, when taken over by another, were offered at exorbitantly high prices using a different model, with just a logo change!, while the code and features remained the same! 
• Realized the pains of organizing a event (had a first-hand experience of it), where many people who you know participate and had to be extremely careful such that their egos are not hurt

Wild Ideas or Fantasies?

Well, once in a while, I get interesting ideas or fantasies. OK, I could describe it using adjectives like "Wild", "Awesome",  and so on... But I don't like to do a self boasting here. These may sound like wonderful ideas, but may lack the technology or economics to be implemented. Though, I like to see these ideas into action, I am not contemplating  to take them to the next level. So, let me start spelling out one such idea (or fantasy) here. 

"As you travel in a car on a road, the heat generated due to the movement of wheels on the road, should be used to charge a layer of energy cells (solar) that are embedded on the road! and the car can draw energy from the road, when required, and when being stationed!, to run its AC's and Entertainment systems!  

Of course this might sound improbable at least for the next 25 years, but hope something close to it could spring up after 25+ years. This requires radical technologies like roads being laid with energy cells that can withstand all the rough movements on it, heat and other climatic conditions. 

An even still better one would be: Once a car (or any vehicle) has started moving it should at least  get or derive part of its energy required for further acceleration from the underlying roads."