Unless the government invests in making artificial intelligence (AI) a part of the curriculum, the country would be left stranded in the past, Tanmay Bakshi, the 14-year-old Canadian tech prodigy and the youngest software developer with IBM, has said.
“AI is growing and expanding at an exponential rate. And if the engineers that India produces are not able to keep pace with that technology, they would be stuck in the past,” he told The Hindu during his first visit to Chennai.
Tanmay started using computers when he was five and has been working with IBM’s AI platform called Watson. He has collaborated on several projects that show real-life proof of the benefits of the technology. He was in the city to address the students at IIT-Madras on entrepreneurship and AI.
“Since I started at a very young age, the technology grew with me,” he said with a smile.
Tanmay also noted that it was not just a question of creating too many engineers, but creating them in the wrong field. He pointed out that even now there are thousands of ‘data scientists’ jobs waiting to be filled up.
‘Learn to programme’
He advised engineers to begin with the simple task of learning programming. And once they understand the technology and the statistics and mathematics behind it, they could move up in the AI value chain.
He also pointed out that many of the country’s problems could be solved through AI, for instance, delivering healthcare to remote places. Tanmay informed that he was working on a project focussed on mental healthcare, with an objective of providing early warning of depression in teens.
“Instead of suicide prevention, we are focussing on depression prevention in the first place. We do that by analysing a lot of data points, including their Twitter and Facebook activity and also text messages to see what they are communicating. We also use GPS to see where they are going and study their browsing history. We also take a look at how much they exercise through the power of AI. And we do all this without violating privacy,” he added.
Tanmay is also involved in another project that tries to predict share prices and value of crypto currencies by studying patterns.
Tanmay also dismissed notions that AI would cannibalise jobs.“Yes, in some specific instances, like driverless vehicles, AI would kill jobs. But it will help humans in performing their tasks efficiently and help them acquire higher skills,” he added.
