Technology has quietly transformed every facet of our life. From
making a trunk call in the middle of the night to India, you can now video chat
with ease all over the world. That journey has been exhilarating to say the
least, including my journey riding the tech roller-coaster.
How has computer come to mimic human action, how has it
impacted lives? What is the future – what are the digital high-tech innovations
which will shape life in the next century? You must look back and ponder about
the mind-blowing progress which has been made in a matter of decades to see
where we can go in a few years.
Jumping into
the unknown word of Computer Science
Computer was a rare commodity when I was going to school. I
had never touched or seen a computer in real-life in high school at South Point High School, a prestigious private school in Kolkata, my city of birth. But, in 1983,
I decided to pick up Computer Science and Engineering as the major, when I went
to Indian Institute of Technology at Kharagpur for college. IIT's are considered the cream of the crop in technology education in India ever since Independence.
Why? Even though computer was not available to anyone, it
was the top selection for engineering, with only 100 Computer Science seats
available at the 5 IIT’s together. The words of my counsellor, “the subject
which will revolutionize the world” rang in my ears. To be honest, more than
being impressed by the future, it was the prestige and the challenge of knowing
a mysterious technology which drew me. Computer was a mystery to people in
India then!
Over the four years, got introduced to all facets of
Computer Science. Learning Computer Science is like learning to play chess –
how do you use computer smartly and efficiently to solve hard problems, find
the most optimal solution or the best moves called “algorithm”.
In the mid 1980’s. the technology world began waking up to
Artificial Intelligence, Cognitive Reasoning, Expert Systems, Shape
recognition. The drive was to mimic and surpass a human being. In parallel,
tremendous progress was being made in the world of communication – connecting
the word seamlessly. Wide area networks were connecting computers across
distances. The digital revolution was on!
When
technology and research intersect
NASA has been the nerve center of many innovations. It is
one of pioneers of cutting-edge technology. From the development of digital
camera to image recognition technology, NASA has had a hand in technologies,
which impacted our lives. NASA, Defense organizations and top research labs
would come to India to recruit students for their graduate research. I was one
of the five students selected from IIT Computer Science to do research on
Computer Vision (a vision related area under Artificial Intelligence). These
well-funded research labs would spend money, recruit top students to work on
cutting edge technology while getting graduate degrees.
This intense technology research was already bearing fruit.
Lot of the work on Computer Vision and Image Recognition is now used in facial
recognition. Think about it for a minute. Many of the AI researchers spent
years working on techniques and algorithms on recognizing images. Now, you have
a different problem – Facebook recognizes your and your friends’ pictures so fast
from billions of photos that often you end up tagging people unintentionally.
Digital camera is another huge advancement. No one, not even
Kodak, which was the king of films, saw this disruption coming. Videos and
pictures are now being stored in littlest of devices with incredible amount of
memory. Think about the days when you had to count how many films you had remaining,
and you had to ration your photos. Also, you had to wait days to get the film
washed.
Another significant area of research was in the burgeoning
field of communication. From microwave transmission to satellites to optical
fibers to wireless, communication became easier, connecting remotes part of the
world. Where you had to wait months and years for landline connection, hours to
get a phone through, you could now connect seamlessly anywhere in the world
from a handheld wireless phone. On top of that, with data, video/talk all
merging in the realm of high tech, you can even watch video and chat live with
your family and friends.
What does
the future hold?
Technology has made data storage and processing power
cheaper. Those two key technology elements can enable the analysis of huge data
that powers smarter decisions. These two features have opened a wide gamut of
possibilities to significantly empower the computer to do really hard tasks.
Artificial intelligence is a broad area of computer science.
It is a term which encompasses the different ways a computer can mimic human
intelligence through learning, recognizing images, making decisions, acting as
experts, understanding and communicating in natural languages, and so many
areas.
One can basically analyze the data to derive rules and
patterns. In other words, computers can “learn” – the approach being called
machine learning. Computers can also be imparted expert-level knowledge to make
decision based on information provided to it.
Data analytics has become more important than ever. Simply
put, consumers are being asked to share data, and tremendous data is being
gathered from computers, mobile devices and the internet of things.
People voluntarily share information through social media
platforms: their opinions, feedback, reviews and honest and open discussions.
All that information is collected and available in public forums. Based on
social media, data analytics can drive better product decisions, retail
marketing themes and even logistical decisions about what to produce and what
to send to stores for sale.
It is not too far-fetched to see an ordinary citizen use
milk-bottle with sensors in the fridge, which will be connected to the network.
Fridges are coming with Wi-Fi these days. Once your milk is on the verge of
running out, a trigger will be sent to fill that milk on your favorite grocery
store site with your profile and credit card. It can even have your personal
information if you want as to what types of milk is suitable for your health. The
milk-bottle will be shipped to your home. You just have to pick up and put it
in your fridge. Or, your personal robot can do that for you!
Watching of movies will change. You can have VR or virtual
reality goggles, where each of us can have a much more realistic view of the
movies and TV shows.
Many operations may be performed by robots. They will have a
vast database and knowledge to guide them, impossibly precise tool and
maneuvering and gadgets seeing microns instead of millimeters.
Path forward
Digitalization will spread to every aspect of our
livelihood. Our devices will be connected; information will be shared. From self-driving
car to automated checkout at grocery store to automated check-in at events to
virtual reality to robots performing mundane tasks, a digital revolution is
happening.
We also need to ensure there is proper custody of data and
authorization to use the data. Having said that, once you take advantage of the
benefits of data, you will have to balance the risk and rewards.
As computers and technology rule the world, do recognize
there will be human experts to guide them, overrule them if needed. Humans will
be also required to up their game.
There will be jobs but the requirement for the jobs will
change. When cars replaced buggies, or machines replaced handloom, there was a
job transformation. Digital transformation is one such step in the human evolution.
Life will become easier but new challenges will come.
When you were waiting hours to make a phone call to your
friend through a landline, you never thought you could video chat with your
family across the world. When Swami Vivekananda took a boat ride to America, he
never imagined it could be done in a matter of hours. Technology will evolve;
civilization will prosper. As scientists and users of technology, we also must
be aware of our responsibilities. A bright golden future awaits all of us.
