Dr. Raj Reddy, the Turing Awardee and winner of Padma Bhushan, graced the RAISE2020 summit by sharing his thoughts on how India needs AI right now more than ever.  

Dr. Reddy said, "India needs to focus on the bottom of the pyramid (approx. 400 million people) and target AI developments to tackle knowledge deprivation." He specifically pointed out that people belonging to the bottom can be benefitted by imparting functional literacy in them and then skilling them to do better. While he also stressed that with speech recognition and translation, we could provide minimal reading and learning capabilities that can increase the prospects of a better future for them.

He also expressed his disappointment with the fact that most of the information available is only in western languages on platforms like Wikipedia, Facebook, WhatsApp, which makes it useless for those people of India who are not well versed with any language other than their native languages. He believes all this data on the internet can be made available for everyone using AI enabled language translating capabilities. 

The next important point close to his heart is designing a personalized curriculum for children and learning without a teacher. He believed that it could only be possible with the initial screening of what is required by the child and what issues he is facing using predictive analysis. 

"If a child drops out of school in his early years it is not his problem but the problem of the system, curriculum, methodology."

He also added that the problems a student faces can be categorized as 'lack of interest, attention deficit, lack of motivation, daydreaming, or struggle to understand the subject matter. This screening can be done using AI-assisted techniques such as monitoring keyboard clicks and understanding their patterns in small tests. He stressed the fact that education must be made accessible for everyone based on his specific needs and capabilities. 

Also, around the current pandemic led lockdowns, Dr. Reddy said, "Rather than locking down entire economic activity it would be better to utilise AI enabled smart features to identify and isolate people at risk." He said the smartwatches and similar devices could use mammoth data available for pattern recognition using AI in reaching out to people who are more vulnerable than others. This way, economies can continue to be functional while the people at the bottom of the pyramid also do not suffer extensively. 

He also said that using AI-assisted screenings at the time of birth can bring down infant mortality rates in India to a great extent. He added that India should start screening more rigorously with the right utilization of AI-assisted techniques as dealing with such humungous data can rightly be done by AI capabilities only for swift actions.

As an advice to today's young aspirants, he quoted Louis Pasture, "Luck favours the prepared." So be prepared, believe in yourself, and back up your own idea. Under India strong leadership, India must start executing its plans around education and skilling, leveraging AI capabilities.

Image by AkshayaPatra Foundation from Pixabay