This articles shows insights on technical advancements happening, and throws light on the direction, the technical folks should focus their attention towards.
I do not know how many of you cursed technology being so volatile and not stable at least for few years. But to be frank, whoever chose this area of work, because of its volatile nature. Because you are fascinated by the new faces of technology each day. Because technology is able to make your life more and more comfortable. But once you are in technology, now suddenly you got inertia and not willing to accept the changes any more. But accept the fact that it doesn’t stop for you and me!

 

Now if technology is not going to stop changing, which means it is evolving every day, every minute, then where is it leading us? That is the question that many of us have. As the quest of science continues, it continues to contribute to technology and technology continuously will give us gadgets. Right now for the next 5-10 years, it is the time for Cloud, Smartphones etc. But then next what? The AI, yes the Artificial Intelligence! What does it mean and how does it affect us? Let us look at few facts.

 

There are AI solutions offered by IBM (Watson), Google , Amazon and many more companies, which are matured to an extent of amazing capability.( Ref: Watson). It is the quest of man, not because of his laziness, but as a challenge to creation itself, that why cannot he make something as sophisticated as a human being with intelligence, emotion, capabilities, physical prowess and constantly evolving! That is what is making the AI go by leaps and bounds, because the ground for it, processing capabilities, memory, connectivity, persistence are fully setup. It is only a matter of few innovations, that AI will suddenly show us a new face, that it almost imitates a human being. With that kind of future, if we are not equipped well, we would be overrun by the AI, with absolutely no respect, whoever we are and wherever we are. Because it is precise, efficient, and consistent, where human beings utterly fail. It is a forward journey and no looking back, no regrets, just like the automobile industry! Til massive number of mishaps happen day to day, they wouldn’t remove automobiles from roads. Either we travel on the wheels or fall under the wheels, or travel on wheels and still fall under the wheels, those are the only choices we have today on roads, isn’t it?

 

With AI, new breed of applications would surface, which would

1. Self Develop interfaces and applications, based on the business, administrative, security or governance needs.
2. Self heal themselves with zero human intervention
3. Manage humans in their lives and work
4. Create new gadgets based on the need of the hour
5. Continuously improvise.

 

If you notice the point (5), that is the only area, where human intervention will be fully required. Machines, though in many sci-fi movies, depict, becoming self conscious, and intuitive, that is impossible from a Core life understanding stand point. So for improvement, human intervention will still be required. If we take a quick glance at the history of AI, and its pace,

• In 1997, Deep Blue of IBM defeated World Champion in Chess
• In 2009, Google builds self driving car
• In 2011, ASIMO, the humanoid robot is made by Honda, which performs many activities
• In 2011, IBMs NLP and ML beats two world Champions in Jeopardy
• During 2011-204, Googles Now, Apples Siri, Microsoft Cortana appear as Natural Language speaking apps
• In 2014, Facebooks Deepface , recognizes faces with 97.4% accuracy
• In 2017, Googles Alphago defeats World Champions of Go, by 60-0

 

A few more innovations are to come in the next few years, and AI will show a new face. New face where things will be self healed, managed and governed. There will be new breed of men required, who will make all this possible. Intelligent men are no more enough. Men with Fired up attitude, Zeal to learn, think and implement are required.

 

So if you are still in the mindset of oiling a machine and sticking to the job, you will obviously become more than obsolete, because there will be no machine left to lubricate. You must gear up now, to lubricate your mind, to turn along with technology and embrace it, equip yourself with the new tools to join the band of people who will eventually land up in (5). Put your thinking to constructive use. The luxury of computerizing departments in various government and private sectors, and upgrading software is almost coming to an end. The era of human intervention for support, help and ticketing is rapidly being automated. Moving from one organization to another is only a temporary fix to save the underdeveloped skill of the hour. Intelligentsia will move on to Artificial intelligence domain, and make their position stable in the years to come. Certifications will be limited to your learning capability. You will be more recognized by how much improvisation you brought to AI in your domain of work. The glamor of technology has moved from computer to smartphone, and now it is shifting to AI. What are you thinking now?

 

The time is coming where the intelligentsia will get more focus and will be in limelight and get rewarded more. The process and policy makers will have to think beyond, to make this as a non destructive methodology both from Life and Ecology balance standpoint.