Artificial Intelligence for All

Transforming Every Aspect of Our Life

Utpal Chakraborty

• Publisher: BPB Publications
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9789389328509
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Artificial Intelligence (AI) & Semantics
• Index: Computer Science

Artificial Intelligence, the Revolutionary Transformation that no one can scape Key Features

• Provides perfect 'playground' for enterprises and institutions globally to develop Artificial Intelligence solutions
• The world has achieved an enormous amount of technological advancement and skyrocketing progress in mass Digitization, Data Science, and FinTech
• The gist of the golden era of AI and FinTech
• AI-powered autonomous vehicles are undoubtedly the future. Autonomous vehicles are the dawn of a whole new lifestyle
• Using Artificial Intelligence to redefine their products, processes and strategies
• 
  Description
  The book 'Artificial Intelligence for All' is a snapshot of AI applications in different industries, society, and everyday life. The book is written considering possibilities AI can bring in the Indian context and considering Indian industries and economy at the center stage.
  The book starts with describing the race for the supremacy of different countries in the field of Artificial Intelligence that has already taken a great momentum and how AI has managed to influence even mainstream politics and the world leaders.
  In the subsequent chapters, the book brings in AI applications primarily in the Banking and Finance sectors like Financial Crime detection using AI, Credit Risk Assessment, AI-powered conversational banking, Predictive Analytics, and recommendations in Banking and Finance. What will you learn
  This book is for both technical and non-technical readers, a cutting edge technology like Artificial Intelligence is simplified for all and a genuine effort has been made to democratize it as much as possible. The book will provide insights into the real applications of AI in different industries like health care and medicine, banking and finance, manufacturing, retail, sports, and many more, including how it's transforming our life which probably many of us are not even aware of. And most importantly how a country like India can be benefitted by embracing this groundbreaking technology and the huge opportunities and economic impact that AI can bring. Who this book is for
  This book is useful for AI Professionals, Data Scientists...
  The content of the book is for both Technical and Non Technical readers who want to know the applications of AI in different industries.
  No prior technical or programming experience is required to understand this book. Table of Contents
  1. Super Powers of AI – The Leaders and the Contenders
  2. AI – The Core Fabric for NextGen Banking
  3. How an AI Framework can be a Game-Changer in Your AI Journey
  4. Artificial Neural Networks
  5. The Next Wave of Automation will Transform our Living Experience
  6. Self-Driving Cars – Socio-Economic Impact of Autonomous Vehicles
  7. How Artificial Intelligence is Transforming the BFSI Sector 43
  8. AI Now is a Race Among Startups and Tech Giants
  9. AI in the top of priorities for CIOs and CTOs
  10. AI in Sports
  11. How a Country can be Transformed Using Artificial Intelligence
  12. Don't Underestimate the Power of an AI Chatbot
  13. Industry Adoption of Cognitive and Artificial Intelligence
  14. Artificial Intelligence – The Biggest Disruptor in the BFSI Industry
  15. AI in Healthcare
  16. AI in Cyber Security – Cognitive Cyber Defense
  17. Be Aware of Cyber Threat
  18. AI Revolution in India – National Strategy for AI
  19. AI in Tour and Travels – Journey of a Digital Traveler
  20. Top 100 Business Use Cases of Artificial Intelligence
  21. T Impact of Modern Automation on Employment
  

CHAPTER 1

Super Powers of AI – The Leaders and the Contenders

Russian President, Vladimir Putin, stated that AI is the future and whoever becomes a leader in AI will become the ruler of the world. Chinese President, Xi Jinping, declared that China wants to be the world leader in AI by 2030. The US White House Administration voiced that America has been the global leader in AI, and the Trump administration will ensure our great nation remains the global leader in AI. Similarly, National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence, India, published by NITI Aayog, indicates its vision as AI-for-All in India. These statements clearly indicate that the race for the supremacy in the field of Artificial Intelligence has already taken a great momentum, and AI has managed to influence even mainstream politics and the world leaders in a great way.

On the other hand, many experts across the globe are already in a big hurry to proclaim which country will be the AI superpower and who is already ahead in the race. Some of them even persuasively claim themselves to be an AI superpower just by building a simulated bubble to attract the extra attention from the world and some investors. Keeping aside all those hidden agendas, and before even jumping to some conclusion, we should first consider the prerequisites to be a mere contender in this race. Because it’s not going to be a wholesome competition, especially when we have contenders who will not shy away from attempting any possible means, whether ethical or unethical, to be ahead of the competition. A few countries are already leading in this race; and, at the same time, there are strong contenders who have huge potential to be in the list of leaders in the near future.

Before taking this debate further, we also need to define the parameters to measure the supremacy and the factors influencing the same. Is it how much dollars are generated in a country by utilizing AI or what are all the core problems that are solved for humanity by uplifting the quality of life of the citizens of a nation? Also, the priorities to be addressed are country and region specific.

For example, predicting what movie or what ad a user will like using AI may not be something so compelling when it comes to a developing country like India; rather, if AI can address some of the core areas like healthcare and medicine, agriculture, food, water, education, urbanization, and so on, it will be much more compelling. The success of AI, in this case, will be measured in much higher terms. To understand this, let’s take a step back and discuss the factors that can essentially fuel contenders to become leaders.

Technically, there are five major prerequisites that are essential for an AI ecosystem to flourish in a country, but there could be many others that can largely contribute to its advancement and implementation.

AI Research

AI is essentially an evolving field, and many of the AI technologies are maturing and getting better off with research and evolution, which is happening in terms of a better approach to tackle some of its technical limitations. There may not have been another groundbreaking breakthrough after Deep Learning (DL) in the last couple of years, but there have been many improvements—there were small and medium innovations in terms of how deep learning and other AI technologies can be applied effectively in many different areas; all those are essentially due to continuous researches happening in the field. So, an ecosystem embracing AI research is very essential for a country to progress in the field of AI, whether such researches are to be carried out in academia, within R&D cells of AI companies, or in collaboration with the government.

Usable Data

Usable data comes from the real-world physical services that have been digitized so far. This means that researchers have to use the many physical services that have been digitized in the country and the data from those services that has been collected, stored, and made available for AI companies, to feed and enrich their AI models.

Wealth of AI Engineers and Data Scientists

For traditional software engineers to become AI affluent, special skills are needed in the areas of machine learning, deep learning, NLP, and so on. AI researchers coming from a data science background need even higher skills and background to carry out research in the different areas of AI. An adequate pool of such AI engineers and AI researchers is essential for AI to grow in a country. The more your tech colleges and universities produce these skilled resources, the more your chances to be a leader in the race.

Support from Government and Awareness Among Citizens

The government of a country plays a major role in democratizing a rising technology like AI. Backing from the government and their support is crucial, whether it be to build infrastructure for AI, frame policies that support AI to grow, encourage enterprises in the adoption of AI, or whatever other form it could be.

Funding and VC Ecosystem

Proper funding and a mature Venture Capitalist (VC) ecosystem is vital for AI startups and other AI initiatives to grow in a country. Sometimes, it’s not just funding the AI startups, but essentially guiding them through their journey, and believing in and being a part of their vision is very important, which can only be expected from a mature VC ecosystem. Despite having all other AI ingredients, most of the developing countries—like India and its young entrepreneurs and startups—are essentially struggling in this particular space.

I will try to list down a few of the leaders and some of the strong contenders here; however, the order in which the contenders have been listed in this article, and the length of the text written for each, has no significance on their capabilities and position in the race.

USA

Undoubtedly, the U.S.A is ahead in the race, both in terms of AI research and some of the large-scale AI implementations. US has got most of the best AI researchers of the world—most of the tech and AI giants are based there. Some of the AI applications used globally are again US products. US has huge data available for AI to flourish as most of the physical services there are already digitized. US has the best universities and talents, best AI labs, and the best funding ecosystem so far. But, there is a twist in the story— unlike other technologies, in the case of AI, a few countries are not far behind US; in fact, there is a possibility US may be left behind in the future.

Canada

Canada is well ahead in AI research—it has got the finest AI researchers and universities. Canadian universities produce some of the best AI researchers every year. Also, talented professionals from all over the world land there to research on different areas of AI and translate their ideas into implementable solutions. Unfortunately, Canadian talents are very academic and research-oriented, and there is an actual shortage of real entrepreneurs who can take AI beyond the classes and the labs and onto the road. This is probably the reason that, despite having most of the talented AI professionals in the world, they still have not been able to produce best AI products or AI companies. It seems that the Canadian government has now realized this fact and is currently focusing on AI implementation and exploring how to generate revenue out of it. Also, recent imposition of immigration restrictions in US have essentially become a blessing for Canada and a few other AI contenders to attract more and more talents from across the globe.

China

China has emerged itself from a copycat to a unique form of inimitable entrepreneurism. The word copycat may sound a bit offensive, but trust me, the word in this particular context of the article has a great significance, which we will discuss in the next few paragraphs. Personally, I have got a great regard for China and Chinese entrepreneurs—it is especially worth noting how it has incredibly transformed itself in the past few decades. We all have a great lesson to learn from them. Essentially, they have gorgeously demonstrated the fact that you can begin with as a copycat and with hard work and dedication, you can become an innovator. It is not true that you need a great, out-of-the-box, unique innovative concept or a product to be a successful entrepreneur, which is what many of our young Indian entrepreneurs sometimes wrongly assume. You can essentially transform your ordinary concept into a unique innovative product by adding factors like operational excellence, better usability taking into consideration your user needs; and the same can come out as a great product—that’s what happened for many of the Chinese successful products you see today.

Two decades ago, China started with what we call a straight copycat and built a replica of Google, Amazon, Facebook, WhatsApp, and so on. It was the Chinese version of such products that suited the Chinese market and users. Soon, they realized that if they can provide the best of the breed, world-class services to their users and customers with an addition of regional flavor on top of it, it works much better than a generic global product. That’s probably one element of the secret recipe of China’s unique form of entrepreneurism.

Imagine you are capable of copying a market-proven product, and you have the capability to do innovation on top of it; you will always have an advantage over your competitors. China’s formula of entrepreneurism, innovation, and value creation lies on the fact that there is a huge competition among the Chinese entrepreneurs in every domain, and the only way to stand out among these competitors is to take your product to a level at which it is far better and inimitable. Many Chinese entrepreneurs have already proved their excellence in execution, product quality, speed of bringing products in the market, and better utilization of data in decision making in the business. In terms of excellence in execution and product quality, they have been consistently excelling and have reached a stage today that is not only far superior to their competitors within and outside China, but also inimitable and not replicable.

That’s the reason the Chinese and its neighboring markets embrace these products. We all know that any entrepreneurial journey starts with a great vision and an aggressive execution plan to achieve milestones to chase the vision. But, we often forget the fact that any execution plan needs continuous modernization and monitoring to make it relevant as per the demand of the situation and the dynamics of the market. Chinese entrepreneurs know how to survive in such a highly competitive environment, where the only way of survival is not just to win, but to abolish all other competitors so that they can’t come back again someday.

Also, an advantage the Chinese economy and the Chinese market carries, which again holds true even for India, is that these two countries have a huge domestic test-ground and user base to try and test any new concepts or products. The affinity of the market is so huge that it can absorb any product or service within that you need not have to even think of any other markets at least in the initial stages.

Another reason China is essentially leading in AI is because it has been able to transform itself into a Cashless, CardLess, Mobile-Only economy. This helped in collecting huge useable data, which became incredibly useful for AI companies and other researchers to accelerate their AI development.

China is focusing hugely on AI research as well. In the last 3-4 years, the highest number of AI research papers and patents have been filled by Chinese companies and researchers. The reason China is paving its way towards AI superpower is because of the following reasons.

Firstly, China has a huge amount of usable data, which is basically fuel for AI. Chinese companies, along with the Chinese Govt., has been able to digitize many of their services used by the citizens, because of which China has complete length, breadth, and depth of data, which is fundamental for AI to grow. China is the first truly mobile-first country and the Chinese market and Govt. embraced these transformations. Secondly, China has a powerful Venture Capitalist enterprise ecosystem. Huge fund is flowing to Chinese markets and investors are ready to invest on Chinese companies and startups. The third reason is that the Chinese entrepreneurs are hardworking, have a huge hunger for success, and compete with a true gladiator type do-or-die approach. The fourth reason is the huge support from the Government democratizing AI.

The protectionist nature of the Chinese Govt. provides domestic startups a space to settle down and grow to a level until it becomes ready to compete with the big global players in their early incubation period. Also, Chinese education is more about road learning, i.e., practical approach of learning and implementing. The Chinese government and authorities are fully convinced by the fact that AI is the future; hence, building their infrastructure to be “future AI ready”, like a new city, is planed near Beijing, which is designed for autonomous vehicles. Similarly, it is building highways with sensors for autonomous vehicles as the lighting conditions in the road affects the autonomous vehicles the most, which can be substantiated by sensors along the highways to avoid any kind of accidents.

It is also important to mention one major disadvantage of Chinese AI products—they have not been so successful in expanding beyond China. Moreover, the language becomes a roadblock for Chinese entrepreneurs when it comes to globalizing their products. So, probably China is doing very good in the Chinese market, but not great when it comes to expanding the business globally, which is very essential in today’s world. Also, Chinese products, whatever it could be, have a bad reputation on the quality front.

UK and Europe, Japan, Russia

Although having the potential and most of the ingredients for AI, UK and Europe, Japan, and Russia have yet not been able to leverage those fully to come top in the list. They have a huge usable data, but they have lots of restrictions around it. So, companies probably have not been able to utilize it to the fullest. Moreover, despite having some of the brilliant AI researchers and AI professionals, they don’t have the kind of tenacious and hardworking entrepreneurs, at least in AI space. The VC ecosystem in UK and Europe is not that strong and mature. So, the governments and the union need to do a lot of work to be ahead in the race. Similarly, Japan and Russia—although having great potential— need aggressive execution. Certainly, they are strong contenders, provided they work on the aspects mentioned above.

India

India has a huge number of IT professionals, ranging from highly skilled to moderate skilled, who are already working in different top global companies and playing key roles developing global products or managing global operations. They understand such products, they have a fair understanding of business models, and many of them have already jumped into the startup world in India, building their own products. Most of these startups are developing AI products in many different domains, starting from known areas like banking and finance, healthcare, manufacturing, retail, and so on to uncommon domains like agriculture, fisheries, marine resources, water management, alternative medicines, Ayurveda, and safety and empowerment of women, to name a few.

AI revolution in India has already started in a big way, touching across almost all the areas that you can imagine, and the world will see the actual results of the same in the coming few years.

Also, the National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence, India, published by NITI Aayog in 2018, is an exhaustive plan and roadmap with a slogan of AI-for-All in India, which shows how seriously Aayog (commission) as well as government has taken AI, and how they are trying to integrate it with every aspect of our country and its citizens. This is a landmark and stepping stone for a developing country’s great ambition to integrate technology as a main stream in its transformation journey, which I believe no country has thought through in that diversified a manner.

This strategy clearly shows how our Aayog and our government have been able to identify the core areas that are very specific to Indian conditions, where AI can play a crucial role and uplift the economy and hence all other sectors. It has given equal importance to the government, private, and public sectors while fabricating such a strategy; so, you can imagine the depth of thought process, expertise, seriousness, and a die-hearted effort that has gone into it to make AI Indianized.

AI will bring huge opportunities and boost the Indian economy with an estimated annual growth rate of 1.3 percent, and, in a decade’s time, an addition of extra one trillion USD is just humongous. As per experts, India provides the perfect playground for enterprises and institutions globally to develop AI solutions, which can be easily implemented in the rest of the developing and emerging economies, and the Solved in India mission is in perfect sync with Artificial Intelligence as a Service (AIaaS).

In healthcare, the Tata Memorial Hospital has started working on the Cancer Heat Map that can minimize cancer woes with the adoption of AI techniques. The Digital Pathology and another project under discussion, namely the Imaging Biobank, for cancer will help with detecting the disease accurately and precisely in a very early stage. Indian startup, Forus Health, which has developed a portable device named 3Nethra, can screen for common eye problems as well as complicated conditions like diabetic retinopathy. The Indian government has been making a series of large-scale interventions to address India’s healthcare challenges, transformation of 1.5 lakh ‘Health and Wellness Centers’, developing district hospitals to cater to long-term care for non-communicable diseases, Ayushman Bharat Mission, and promoting e-Health, where AI has started playing a crucial role for its success.

In agriculture, in the last couple of years, approximately 50 Indian agricultural AI technology-based startups, AgTechs, raised more than USD 500 million. Indian startup, Intello Labs, for example, uses an image-recognition software to monitor crops and predict farm yields. Aibono uses agri...