Making life more productive with Artificial Intelligence..

Artificial Intelligence is bound to change our life in myriad ways in the coming years. One of the greatest impact will be on ways AI will influence the ways people will lead comfortable lives in old age.

AI is set to be all-pervading ..

The present days we find computers and Information Technology with the Internet has made life comfortable as regards shopping, banking, communication, learning, etc. Regarding healthcare, computers and IT has made telemedicine a reality and medicine delivery possible. For maintaining health we still have to do physical exercises and exercise diet control.

In the coming days because of IT systems and Internet people have become more independent and self-reliant. This tendency will be more pronounced in the AI era. We will find processes that have been optimised as regards physical engagement have been optimised with respect to physical activities by making use of Internet apps and so on. The mind still needs to work.

We can expect in the coming days AI playing an important role in relieving the mind of many of the routine chores and be freed to carry out more creative activities.

Some examples are given here

1. AI daily planner

2. AI weekly planner

3. AI social activity planner

4. AI powered MOOCS for more effective knowledge collection and dissemination

5. AI enabled elder hand-holding program

6. AI powered apps like REPLIKA will help remove boredom, loneliness and monotony in daily chores 

7. The AI based web designing software LEIA makes getting on the web so much more easier for anyone in the world. 

8. Google maps, Gmail, Google search all of these have very advanced and useful basic AI incorporated already.

As is evident from some of the programs and applications listed above as Computers, Informaton Technology and the Internet made life easier for the modern generation, AI and AI apps will make life easy, interesting and creative for us humans in the coming 50 years removing mundane activities and helping us experience higher cognitive senses of human intelligence and interaction ..

Let us wait for those days.

George.

Speaking on Artificial Intelligence at the SME CEO conference ..

Yesterday I got an exciting opportunity to speak at the Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) CEO Conference at 91 Springboard, Near Forum Mall, Koramangala, Bangalore on the topic of Artificial Intelligence and it's impact on Society and Businesses in general..

AI progress is happening at a deadly pace ..
If we are not prepared, be ready to be run over .. 

The SME CEO conclave is an interesting and passionate gathering of SME CEOs who meet once a month and are much interested in exploring new frontiers of knowledge and experience to help the small and medium enterprises in South Bangalore.

Why did I choose to speak on this topic ?

Let me explain my journey from an analog native to a digital alien along with my friends, seniors and juniors. The first time I got introduced to computers was at the Govenment College of Engineering, Trivandrum, Kerala, India, popularly called CET, during 1981-86. Under the guidance of Prof. Dr. PV Ramachandra Menon (cannot forget Sir's much lucid teaching style !!), we got great knowledge on basics of Computer Programming and Numerical Methods, with the concepts of algorithms, flowcharts repeatedly stressed.

For the practical sessions, all of us were very fortunate to work on the IBM Mainframe computer in our Computer Centre. With punched cards, it was great learning and a rare exposure too. In 1986 while leaving College, I saw the first desktop computer in the Lab. We are very thankful to the Kerala govt, it's people and the Travancore royal family for being so generous with funds for our college and its computing facilities.

We were analog natives becoming digital aliens, entering the field of digital computers, thanks to the efforts of Claude Shannon and team from MIT and Bell Labs for introducing us to the digital world ..

Are we prepared ?

Our kids who were born during the nineties were already born into a society with digital computers and take pride in calling themselves digital natives. 

My experiences with Amazon's personal assistant Alexa over the past three years has been has been sort of mixed and interesting. As we pass through the twenty first century we find digital initiatives plateauing around the world and Artificial Intelligence picking up.

AI is going to impact human activities in the coming decades like never before. And we need to understand how to prepare ourselves with the needed skills and knowledge to swim through it's vast waters, aided by very powerful computers and networks presently in use. 

Over the past six years we have got used to a great companion for all our traveling expeditions, the Google Maps. Were it not for this AI assisted map service, we would have got stranded at many a place for want of directions and advice on roadways wading through heavy traffic, telling us which routes to take to avoid waiting and to reach destinations as early as possible.. I have additionally introduced my students to the wonderful AI assisted chatbot to be their permanent friend, REPLIKA and an AI based web site designing app, LEIA. 

Google takes great interest in popularising the popular apps using AI, besides Google maps, for the benefit of humanity. The  moment you have received a Google mail and want to send a reply, Gmail already has three most appropriate replies lined for you, easing your job of replying.

The present generations of people living on planet earth are the AI aliens.

These are some of the earliest ways humanity finds AI to be of benefit to mankind. We have to yet explore ways and means by which AI will assist us, interfere with our lives and livelihoods and make us all the more productive and resourceful.

Can we turn AI to be totally useful to mankind ?

I was referring to an HBR article on Collaborative Intelligence considered to be among the top ten management articles from Harvard Business Review of 2019 by Wilson and Daugherty, Aug 2018. (click here for the article) .

These are some of the steps I have been taking of late to know more about AI and talk and teach about it to the people of the immediate society around me. Hope I get to talk to large audiences and help them be better prepaed, with my friends, college mates and colleagues to tame this helpul, yet deadly giant AI, staring at us in  the beginning of the third decade of the twenty first century.

George

PS: I am thankful to my former colleague Raju Gundala for inviting me to this conference arranged by the Small and Medium Enterprises of Bangalore to talk on AI on 15 Feb, 2020.

Role play of Corona virus economic impact in MBA class

Corona virus, picture courtesy BBC.

Corona virus we know is taking a hit on the Chinese economy now. The city of Wuhan and the province of Hubei is taking massive hit.

To understand the global impact -  social, economic, political, health, business, supply chain, travel, students on the Chinese society, business, global community etc. in greater depth and detail, we did a role play in the Operations class yesterday, 7 Feb 2020.

Our way of carrying out role plays, is different from how the leaders and the best in the field does it, Harvard University ... (Click here to understand how Harvard does it).

Our methodology for doing the role play is based on my earlier experience doing similar role plays in the class. We identified the major objectives of the role play which were

1. to help the authorities control the spread of the virus, to prevent infection and

2. chalk out strategies to help the infected

As the second step we identified ten major stake holders in the Corona virus scare case.

1. Communist govt of China

2. Infected Patients of the novel Corona virus in China

3. people of China who until now and even now is subservient to the Communist rule with no freedom of expression

4. Medical fraternity comprising of doctors and supporting medical personnel

5. United Nations / World Health Organisation (WHO)

6. Airlines of different countries operating into and out of China

7. Parents of students studying in China

8. Operators of major supply chain facilities like warehouses and transporters of medicines, food,

9. Utility operators like power, water and Internet

10. Global media, TV and newspaper

The class of 29 was divided into 10 groups of 3 each (one group had 2) and they had to formulate their strategy in the following areas -

1. to contain the spread of the novel Corona virus

2. to alleviate the fear among the Chinese public

3. to ensure the basic utilities like power, water , basic transportation, hospitals etc are kept running

4. to ensure medical personnel are available to the needy patients across the city of Wuhan and the province of Hubei

5. to ensure proper information dissemination was happening to the public with no room for rumours.

After doing an initial analysis of the different supply chain drivers and how the virus scare is impacting the primary drivers like facilities, transportation, inventory and information, as also the secondary driver of demand, the exercise started with the representative for the global media, myself, asking questions to the Chinese government as to how they were trying to contain the spread of the virus across the country and to different parts of the world.

An invigorating hour later with lot of interesting and informative exchanges happening across the different stakeholders and more importantly the passionate pleas from the doctors and parents of the students stranded in Wuhan with no prospect of flying out, the role play came to and end.

The most gratifying aspect of the study was the fact that all the students while playing out their role in the role play, got to empathise or understand the emotions and feelings of the other stakeholders of the play and how their individual decisions would have an impact on the other stakeholders.

Our students in future when they get into senior decision making roles in industry and government across the world, these experiences will definitely help them to empathise with the different stakeholders and make effective decisions.

The other big advantage is that our students are well informed of all measures to contain the spread of the virus in India and can to a limited extent advise senior government functionaries on controlling the spread of this virus.

We continued with an extension to the role play called JIGSAW, where each member of the stakeholder group was formed into a separate GENERAL group, there were three general groups in total, and after heated discussions they suggested excellent strategies to help counter the Corona virus scare in China. Notable among it was airlifting medicines and food across China, using drones to deliver food, vaccines and medicines for the last mile. 

George.

History of paper and its global usage ..

*2100 years of the history of paper*

Paper was invented in China around first century BC. It took 800 years before Arab traders took the know -how to Arabia in the 7th century AD From Arabia it spread to India and Europe around the 13th centuryand later to Africa and Australia. 

Presently of the 423 million tonnes of paper consumed annually in 2019 around the world,  almost 265 million tons (63%) is consumed by the top 10 paper consuming countries of the world and the rest 37% is consumed by the other 190 countries of the world. At 103 million and 71 million tonnes consumption annually China and US top the world.  

In per capita annual usage, while the global average paper consumption is 55 kgs, in  US, average annual per capita paper consumption is at 215 kgs, (4x global average). China remains  at 74 kgs (1.5x) and India at 13 kgs (0.24x) annual usage respectively. 

Worldwide consumption of paper has risen by 400% in the last 40 years with 35% of harvested trees being used for paper manufacture (The Paperless Project, 2014). In the last 20 years, the usage of paper products has increased from 92 million tons to 208 million, which is a growth of 126% (The Paperless Project, 2014).

The usage of paper has declined in the printing industry (efficiently supported by the digital storage world) while it's usage has increased in packaging and personal hygiene sectors around the world. 

George..

Greenest Grand Slam - Australian Open 2020

The world is getting more responsible and aware of sustainability and green issues .. 

Watch this video of Novak Djokovic best shots in Australian Open 2020 (click here for video) .. Have you observed the ball boys and girls and the officials, their light green and blue dresses .. They are processed from about 1,89,000 used PET bottles from Tirupur in Tamil Nadu, the textile capital of india .. Also 40% of the energy used in the tournament comes from renewable solar and wind energy.. In short, the Australian Open in 2020 for the first time in the history of tennis is a Green Grand Slam.
 

AO 2020 officials and ball boys and girls in Tirupur PET dress ..

This is a example of how the world is committed to promote green practices in all spheres of life. The Australian Open authorities deserve big kudos for that.

The term 'Green Supply Chain Management' (GSCM) refers to the concept of integrating sustainable environmental processes into the traditional supply chain. 

This can include integrating sustainable processes and practices into supply chain processes such as 

• product design, 
• material sourcing and selection, 
• manufacturing and production, 
• operation and 
• end-of-life management.

One of the best ways to start this activity is by administering a class quiz on green sustainability practices ... (click here, open for students from 8 PM IST on 4 Feb 2020..)

Courtesy United Nations..

The next step to get the class interested in knowing more about the supply chain was to ask the students to practice something in their own life, by asking the class to observe a NO IMPACT WEEK. 

No Impact Week is a UN mediated and recommended week held in many of the world's top organisations and top-tier educational institutes to create better awareness of the 2015 UN Paris Treaty which brought out the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 2015-2030) to look at different ways and means to contain global warming to less than 1.5 degrees C by 2099 AD.

The intention of observing the No Impact Week besides addressing SDG goals 10,11 and 12, is to make the earth a better place for our future generations.

• create awareness of green practices among the public
• help understand impact of our activities on the environment 
• identify and blacklist industries that pollute the environment, Coke and Pepsi are the world's two top polluters
• identify how individual carbon footprint can be reduced
• promote a sustainable personal lifestyle
• reduce inequalities around the world and give the less fortunate better living means (SDG 10)
• promote responsible production and consumption (SDG 12)
• building sustainable cities and communities (SDG 11)

Links .. 

A brief report on the No Impact Week organised in Alliance School of Business ..

Click on a link here on what is the No Impact Week ..

Click here for a National Geographic quiz to find how much you are aware of green policies..  

Click here for a Green quiz from How Stuff Works ..

George..

Deepfakes ..

Deepfakes (a portmanteau of "deep learning" and "fake"^[1]) are synthetic media in which a person in an existing image or video is replaced with someone else's likeness using artificial neural networks.^[2][3] They often combine and superimpose existing media onto source media using machine learning techniques known as autoencoders and generative adversarial networks (GANs)  

Click here for an interesting video.. 

Click here for another deepfake video ..

Click for a good paper here 

George..

Google Meena

Any intelligent chatbot should

1. be able to *hold coherent conversations*, 

2. *maintaining context over multiple turns* and 

3. *conversing on just about any topic*

With learning from 341 GB of social media chatter and a *Sensibleness and Specificity Average* of 79 %, *Meena*  will be a huge hit when this new intelligent chatbot will be released by Google soon.

These neural network powered AI systems are modeled on biological neural networks that power human and animal brains. They  *learn to perform tasks from examples* and not being programmed with task-specific rules ..

Over time Meena will be able to provide sensible and logical answers (not only knowledgeable) to all your queries on any topic under the sun ..

https://www.technologyreview.com/f/615118/google-says-its-new-chatbot-meena-is-the-best-in-the-world/