- AI can change the way we live
By: Mobeen Shahid
If anybody read the word Artificial Intelligence (AI), he starts thinking that he will come to a shopping mall on his self-driven car and there a robot opens his car door. All services are automated without human presence, like greeter, house staff, and security guard. Every job is done by a robot. This perception is very much aligned for AI in near future, but are we adopting AI properly in Pakistan? Are we following ethical codes to use AI for improvement of human conditions?
Before going further, I would like to discuss people’s nervousness at the risk of losing their jobs after AI implementation. If we look at history, whenever any new thing came, it created new professions and demands. AI is basically transforming the relationship between people and technology. According to the World Economic Forum, AI is going to create an estimated 58 million new jobs in the world by 2022. For a moment, let’s imagine an international flight with autopilot mode without pilot. Do you think flight can be made safely without a human presence? Only artificial intelligence does its job individually? This autopilot mode’s purpose is to eliminate error and improve accuracy rather than to replace a human. AI is for supporting humans and sharing their work, improving the whole supply chain process and eliminating the risk and errors throughout the process. Now the time has come to focus on strategic and analytical tasks rather than operative tasks. For operative tasks, let AI do its work with accuracy. According to a Harvard Business school research study, AI will add an estimated $13 trillion to the global economy over the next decade.
The public sector should work with the private sector to get knowledge for developing and implementing AI structure. In coming five years if ethics codes will be implemented, foreign investors will surely be attracted towards Pakistan to invest more in Pakistani industry to boost AI application
AI opportunities are endless. They start from operational efficiencies and include increased productivity and revenue. AI is all about handling raw data for analysis and forecasting purposes. Based on this analysis, humans can take strategic decisions to overcome upcoming events. Pakistan is becoming a huge market for AI implementation. In the past two decades, Pakistan improved its security infrastructure like self-guided missiles, aerial warfare, weaponized drones, while surveillance cameras to make a safe city, facial recognition systems and cybersecurity are some examples of AI in Pakistan. If we talk about the public sector, it is behindhand in technology adaptation. Massive work and focus are required to improve their process to adopt and implement AI.
If I talked about the recent earthquake in Azad Jammu and Kashmir, our disaster management authority is far behind the times in surveillance equipment, analytical tools and usage of AI. Firstly, the authority should be enabled by having a predictable analytical engine to forecast floods or earthquakes. It should have the raw data of all social media users in Pakistan that can use AI so as to issue the warning automatically well before time. Unfortunately, if such incident, a flood or earthquake, occurs, the only rescue department is the Army. This is because it has helicopters and its personnel can move around the affected areas on helicopter to estimate the damage and rescue people. If our disaster management authority has drones, then this time-taking helicopter movement can be replaced with drones and AI make the initial damage report with accurate damage estimates and given well in time.
Looking at agriculture, Pakistan has vast agricultural land and 20 percent of GDP depends on agriculture. But unfortunately, we are far behind in the technology of using AI for crop and soil monitoring. We don’t have seasonal data, predictive agricultural analytics and supply chain efficiencies. I did not remember any year when this news did not come that yields were affected by flood or heavy rains. Using of AI at the village level, is not an impossible thing for illiterate farmers. The Pakistan Agriculture Research Council can introduce AI tools and educate farmers to overcome seasonal problems and enhance yields and productivity.
According to the Pakistan 2025 vision, the literacy rate will be raised from 60 percent to 90 percent. But till now 20 million children are out of school and we are lagging far behind our goal. Our main issue is to reach rural area populations. In big cities, we have latest technologies like 5G, and an educated population. But we have no plan to reach rural areas with remote technology. The Education and IT Ministries can plan a road map with the help of personalized learning assistant tools. Through AI technology, without a teacher, children can learn basic mathematics, English and writing skills.
Although the Information TechnologyMinistry is working on the infrastructure of AI in Pakistan with the collaboration of Higher Education Commission (HEC), but they should also work on basic education level of children. Currently the government has allocated Rs. 1.3 billion for AI infrastructure in universities. NED UET Karachi, Comsats Institute of Information Technology (CIIT) University, NUST, University of Engineering and Technology (UET) Lahore, UET Peshawar and University of Punjab have been selected for this project. Two labs are going to be set up for Intelligent Robotic and Deep learning in NUST Headquarters. Medical Imaging and Diagnostic Lab in CIIT, Smart city and Neuro Computation Lab in NED UET Karachi, and Intelligent Criminology lab in UET Lahore. University of Punjab will establish an Agent-Based Computational Modeling Lab.
Pakistan should focus on the infrastructure for AI. Our Private sector has been started working on primarily emerging technologies like robotics, 5G broadband, Internet of things, autonomous vehicles, 3D printing, cloud computing, biotechnology, augmented reality and blockchain-distributed technology. The public sector should work with the private sector to get knowledge for developing and implementing AI structure. In coming five years if ethics codes will be implemented, foreign investors will surely be attracted towards Pakistan to invest more in Pakistani industry to boost AI application.