Category: AI

Few days to go for GTC 2019

I have always been a Nvidia fan boy, right from my days of assembling PCs in IIT Bombay and selling it to the gaming crowd there. Never though imagined that one day same Nvidia will fuel the Artificial Intelligence revolution.

For the uninitiated Nvidia makes GPUs (Graphical Processing Units) which other than being used heavily for gaming have proved to be a game-changer for Artificial Intelligence, driven by its ability to execute tasks in parallel at a large scale. Practically now GPUs are being leveraged for every kind of heavy number crunching be it in any application which uses Deep Learning or Machine Learning. Nvidia organises GPU Technology Conferences globally, with the main event in San Jose kickstarting the calendar every year.

Naturally when I visited GTC last year at San Jose, I was like ‘Alice in wonderland’ given the sheer scale of event with hundreds of companies from all around the world showcasing the best technologies and applications. Attendees were estimated to be 9000 plus so its easily one of the biggest technology events now. Seeing that I made a promise to myself that next year I will get Innoplexus too there. At the same GTC I came to know about Nvidia’s amazing Inception program and applied for it. We showcased our technology to Nvidia experts and after few rounds we became an Inception program member. It helps startups working in AI and Deep Learning with access to right resources within Nvidia ecosystem. You can read more about the program here. 

We applied for GTC last year in August and after a very elaborate review process got accepted. So, this year I am back at GTC – as a speaker. YAY!!

I want to thank Nvidia for giving the opportunity to present the amazing work of Innoplexus at #gtc19 in San Jose in March. My session title is ‘How To Use GPUs For Faster, Better and Cheaper Drug Development‘. To add to the joy, I have our VP, technology & Innovation, Vatsal Agarwal as well present in another session which is titled  Real-Time Connection-Based Filtering to Improve the Precision of the Search Engine in Life Sciences.

And that’s not it – given our Inception membership Nvidia has also given us a chance to present at Inception theater during the GTC.

If you are even remotely interested in Artificial Intelligence in any form or any of its applications or really want to experience how AI is going to disrupt so many sectors then DO NOT miss this event. Use the code GMSGTC to save 20% on registration. See you around!

My talk at National Level Workshop on Artificial Intelligence at IISER Pune

Meet me at National Workshop on Artificial Intelligence in Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Pune – happening on 12th Jan 2019. 

This National Workshop on Artificial Intelligence is organized by Srijan.

“SRIJAN” is a non- government organization (NGO) working in the field of entrepreneurship development, industry-institute interaction and technology transfer. Srijan aims at providing motivation, guidance and mentoring for the aspiring entrepreneurs with a specific focus on the students of engineering. Srijan was established in 1996.

Mr.Abhay Jere  Chief innovation officer, Ministry of HRD, Govt. of India will inaugurate the workshop.

I will be talking about “Building the Foundations of AI” covering what one needs to build such systems, what kind of challenges one must prepare to face and how to combine different pieces of technologies like Deep Learning, Computer Vision, Natural Language Processing, Ontologies, Big Data to get Artificial Intelligence into action.

Date: 12th January 2019

Time: 09:00 AM – 06:00 PM

Venue: Lecture Hall Complex, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Dr. Homi Bhabha Road, Ward No. 8, NCL Colony, Pashan, Pune, Maharashtra 411008 ( Google maps link: https://goo.gl/maps/DQ5YNtGibPm ) 

Here is a short video on the same.

From “Data is Oil” to “AI is Electricity” : A decade of evolution

Data is Oil, AI is new electricity
A decade of evolution.

This one slide sums up a decade (2006-2016) of evolution in the areas of data processing, analysis, computing, machine learning and artificial intelligence.

Clive Humby, UK Mathematician and architect of Tesco’s Clubcard, said in 2006 (widely credited as the first to coin the phrase): “Data is the new oil. It’s valuable, but if unrefined it cannot really be used. It has to be changed into gas, plastic, chemicals, etc to create a valuable entity that drives profitable activity; so must data be broken down, analyzed for it to have value.”

Andrew Ng gave the phrase “AI is the new Electricity” in 2016. “Electricity changed how the world operated. It upended transportation, manufacturing, agriculture, health care. AI is poised to have a similar impact” he said. Information technology, web search, and advertising are already being powered by artificial intelligence. It decides whether we’re approved for a bank loan. It helps us order a pizza and estimate our wait time, and even tells the driver where to deliver it. Other areas ripe for AI impact: fintech, logistics, health care, security, and transportation.

“Just as electricity transformed almost everything 100 years ago, today I actually have a hard time thinking of an industry that I don’t think AI will transform in the next several years,” Ng says.

AI bots as managers ?

If we remove the ability to have an emotional connect and being able to form meaningful bonds then we can as well hire AI bots to lead us, don’t really need a human leader. At the end I believe AI is going to make us more human by forcing us to focus on traits which define us as a human, something which no AI can manage (yet). #AI #Leadership

This article by Rasmus Hougaard, Jacqueline Carter and Vince Brewerton in Harvard Business Review reminds managers that they are human beings.

Why Do So Many Managers Forget They’re Human Beings?

There is another old article from HBR which touches upon the subject of having robots as managers. It kinds of explores the subject with both pros and cons of having a robot as a manager.

In the end it simply depends on people – there are those who have seen abusive managers and leaders and are ready to give bots a chance to manage assuming it will still be better than what they have faced already while there are those who had an opportunity to work with really good humans as their managers and leaders who will never accept AI bots as their managers. Maybe, a time will come when everybody will have to make a choice between the two.