March 28, 2024

Syllabus: General studies paper 3 (science and technology)

Context:

Historically, technology competition has been a main aspect of geopolitics. In this day and age, it can be increasingly reflected in geopolitical battles between the us and china. One such technological competition can be easily witnessed in the field of artificial intelligence (ai).

Advantages of Artificial Intelligence:

  • Self-driving cars:  ai algorithms are one of the primary components that facilitate self-driving cars to make sense of their surroundings, taking in feeds from cameras installed around the vehicle and detecting objects like roads, traffic signs, other cars, and people.
  • Digital assistants and smart speakers: siri, alexa, cortana, and google assistant utilise artificial intelligence to convert spoken words to text and map the text to certain commands. Ai assists digital assistants to make sense of various nuances in spoken language and synthesize human-like voices.
  • Translation: for several decades, translating text between various languages was a pain point for computers. But deep learning created a revolution in services such as google translate. But to be precise, ai still has a long way to go before it perfects human language, but so far, the advances are outstanding.
  • Facial recognition: facial recognition is one of the most prominent applications of artificial intelligence. It has different uses, including unlocking your phone, paying with your face, and detecting intruders in your home.

Medicine:

  • In the medical field also, we will find the wide application of ai. Doctors assess the patients and their health risks with the help of artificial machine intelligence. It educates them about the side effects of various medicines.
  • Medical professionals are often trained with artificial surgery simulators. It finds a huge application in detecting and monitoring neurological disorders as it can simulate the brain functions.
  • Robotics is often used in helping mental health patients to come out of depression and remain active.
  • A popular application of artificial intelligence is radiosurgery. Radiosurgery is used in operating tumours and this can actually help in the operation without damaging the surrounding tissues.

Agriculture sector:

  • Ai can be utilised to predict advisories for sowing, pest control, input control which enable increased income and giving stability for the agricultural community. Image classification tools in addition to remote and locally sensed data can bring a revolutionary change in – utilisation and efficiency of farm machinery, weed removal, early disease identification, harvesting, and grading.

Business sector:

  • In order to take care of highly repetitive tasks – robotic automation is applied which perform faster, effortlessly and tirelessly than humans.
  • Moreover, machine learning algorithms are being integrated into analytics and crm (customer relationship management) platforms to provide better customer service. Chatbots being used in the websites to provide instant service to customers.
  • Automation of job positions has also become a discussion point among academics and it consultancies like gartner and forrester.

Education sector:

  • Artificial intelligence can make certain educational processes automated like grading, rewarding marks, etc. Thus giving educators more time.
  • Furthermore, it can analyse students and adapt to their requirements so as to help them work at their own pace.
  • Ai can change where and how students learn, perhaps even replacing a few teachers.

Financial sector:

  • Ai is applied to personal finance applications and could compile personal data and give financial advice. In fact, nowadays software trades more than humans in wall street.
  • Detection of financial fraud uses artificial intelligence in a smart card-based system.

Legal sector:

  • Automation can result in a faster resolution of pending cases by minimising the time taken while analyzing cases = better use of time and more efficient legal & judicial processes.

  manufacturing sector:

  • Robots have been utilised for manufacturing since a long time now but more advanced exponential technologies have emerged like additive manufacturing (3d printing) which with the support of ai can revolutionize the whole manufacturing supply chain ecosystem.

intelligent robots:

  • Robots can do the tasks given by a human with the help of sensors to detect physical data from the real world like light, heat, temperature, movement, sound, bump, and pressure. Furthermore, they have effective processors, multiple sensors and enormous memory, to showcase intelligence. Also, they can learn from their errors and hence can adapt to the new environment.

gaming:

  • Ai has a significant role in strategic games like chess, poker, tic-tac-toe, etc., where the machine can think of a huge number of possible positions according to heuristic rule (a set of rules intended to increase the probability of solving some problem).

Cyber security:

  • In the 20th conference on e-governance in india it was discussed that ai has the capability to strengthen cyber security ecosystem in india and should be explored further.

Smart cities and infrastructure:

  • Ai is used to monitor patronage and accordingly control associated systems such as pavement lighting, park maintenance, and other operational conditions = lead to cost savings + improving safety and accessibility.

Space sector:

  • Intelligent robots are fed with information and are sent to explore space. Since they are machines with metal bodies, they are more resistant and have a higher ability to endure the space and hostile atmosphere. Because they are created in such a way that they cannot be modified or get disfigured or broken down in a hostile environment.

Mining sector:

  • Artificial intelligence and the science of robotics can be put to use in mining and other fuel exploration processes. Not only that, these complex machines can be used for exploring the ocean floor and hence overcome the human limitations.

Defence sector:

  • Artificial intelligence (ai) based tools would aid the defence forces constructively in areas such as decision support, sensor data analysis, predictive maintenance, situational awareness, accurate data extraction, security, etc.  These tools will assist defence personnel in better operations, maintenance, and logistics support.

 

Peril associated with artificial intelligence:

  • Promoting prejudices and inequalities: it shouldn’t be forgotten that ai systems are created by humans, who can be biased and judgemental. Thus, ai can promote prejudices and inequalities, if initial training of the ai algorithms is biased.
    • For example, it can lead to ai facial recognition and surveillance technology to discriminate against people of color and minorities.
  • Comprising privacy: ai systems learn by analyzing huge volumes of data and they keep adapting through continuous modelling of interaction data and user-feedback.
    • Thus, with the increasing use of ai, the right to privacy can be under threat due to unauthorized access to one’s activity data.
  • Disproportionate power and control: technology giants are investing heavily in regard to artificial intelligence, both at the scientific/engineering and also at the commercial and product development level.
    • These big players have an unmatched advantage when compared to any ambitious competitor out there which is a symptom of data-oligarchic society.
  • Technological unemployment: ai companies are building intelligent machines that perform tasks typically carried out by low-income workers.
    • For example self-service kiosks to replace cashiers, fruit-picking robots to replace field workers, etc.
    • Moreover, the day is not far when many desk jobs will also be edged out by ai, such as accountants, financial traders, and middle managers.

Way forward:

  • International cooperation: given that various governments have only recently established ai policies, and in some cases are still formulating them, international cooperation is still very much a work in progress. In the setting of standards at the multilateral level.
  • Building resilient supply chains: beyond talent, additional challenges like, securing the necessary infrastructure; ensuring resilient supply chains, alignment on standards, governance, ensuring critical minerals and other raw materials required for the development of the necessary physical infrastructure, needs to be addressed.
  • Right steps taken: ai technological revolution brings great opportunities for prosperity and growth — but it has to be ensured that the technology will be applied and used in the right direction.
    • In this regard, some steps are already being taken in different parts of the world, like explainable ai (xai) and the european union’s gdpr — general data protection regulation).

Conclusion:

The critical decisions made in the near future could have transformative effects for international cooperation on ai, which, in turn, could decisively shape the contours of what some have described as the fourth industrial revolution.

https://www.hindustantimes.com/opinion/the-promise-and-perils-of-ai-partnerships-101623837070390.html

Question-as the world seeks to leverage the promises of artificial intelligence, they should also confront similar challenges when it comes to the development and deployment of it. Discuss.

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