Indore: Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) plans to introduce course in artificial intelligence (AI) for Class VIII, IX and X from 2019-2020 session. The official announcement will be uploaded on CBSE website before the session begins.
The news that AI will be part of their syllabus has delighted students specially those interested in science and technology. However, schools will be required to set up infrastructure, laboratories, other facilities and engage subject experts to teach students.
“Course is a good idea but we need time and proper details of coursework, requirements and trainers before offering it as a course to our students,” Siddharth Singh, a school owner, told Free Press. He said students are excited to learn everything new but basic needs have to be provided, which should be in sync with required understanding of AI coursework. “So, we would require details of coursework from CBSE soon,” Singh added.
AS PER NITI AYOG REPORT, AI is not a new phenomenon, with much of its theoretical and technological underpinning developed over the past 70 years by computer scientists such as Alan Turing, Marvin Minsky and John McCarthy.
AI has already existed to some degree in many industries and governments.
Now, thanks to virtually unlimited computing power and the decreasing costs of data storage, we are on the cusp of the exponential age of AI as organisations learn to unlock the value trapped in vast volumes of data. AI is a constellation of technologies that enable machines to act with higher levels of intelligence and emulate the human capabilities of sense, comprehend and act.
Thus, computer vision and audio processing can actively perceive the world around them by acquiring and processing images, sound and speech. The natural language processing and inference engines can enable AI systems to analyse and understand the information collected. An AI system can also take action through technologies such as expert systems and inference engines or undertake actions in the physical world.
These human capabilities are augmented by the ability to learn from experience and keep adapting over time. AI systems are finding ever-wider application to supplement these capabilities across enterprises as they grow in sophistication
Students excited, Students interested in robotics and artificial intelligence appear excited. “I find idea of learning AI from next year fascinating because it will help me in deciding whether I want to make a career in the same field,” student Priya Nigam said. Computer science is her favourite subject.
“It has been my dream to invent something great that can help people and AI takes robotics to a new level,” student Sarthak Jitendra said. He hopes to learn more about the subject and take it up as coursework in next session. Another student Aryan Sharma said, “For me, it is dream come true because I was excited to learn about AI in college and now I get to learn it in school.”
However, senior students regret that they will not have chance to study AI. “But I am happy that our juniors would consider a profession in AI and India will have smarter technology as a gift from smarter students,” student Pawan Wadhwani said.