| | AUGUST 20189As AI turns the car into a roll-ing lounge, the one big probing question is - are we ready to give the control of our lives in the hands of AI? For this, we need to address the lack of AI policy pre-paredness. There is a dire need to deliberate upon and formulate the `ethics of AI' that collectively en-sure preservation of control and management of automated ma-chines, data governance & owner-ship, algorithmic accountability & transparency, and more generally, the governing principles at the time of decision-making by these self-sustaining machines.Today, we are at the cusp of an AI revolution. The time is apt to address and measure the impact of AI's power and its impact on businesses and humanity, in gen-eral. While we can continue to de-bate the extent of AI proliferation in our businesses, we cannot deny the plethora of opportunities that AI is going to unravel in the years to come. AI is not unidimensional in businesses, but is a broad arch of technologies, including Machine Learning, Robotics, Deep Learn-ing, Natural Language Processing, Computer Vision, and Cognitive Computing. These technologies are making a substantial impact across businesses. AI applications are being used in banking & fi-nance, recruitment, agriculture, healthcare, retail security and even the entertainment space. The fact of the matter is that the fu-ture is here ­ now it is up to us, how we leverage these technolo-gy capabilities to derive and drive business value. Another aspect with which AI is associated with is the loss of jobs. The truth is that the advent and application of AI technologies will lead to loss of certain jobs. However, while some mechanical jobs are likely to be taken-over by machines, equal or more number of new jobs will be created. Fur-ther, the advancements in AI tech-nologies and their applications will make the workforce more efficient and smarter, and enable the otherwise linear IT & digital industry to deliver more business value by deploying the same or lesser number of professionals on projects. In such a dynamic mar-ket landscape, both organizations and professionals will need to heavily invest in up-skilling and re-skilling themselves to stay rel-evant in the industry. The fact remains - AI is real, and is here to stay. There are many more applications of this tech-nology that are being tested and invented with each passing day. Any person who is ready to tran-scend from her/his current skills to new ones, will thrive in the fu-ture. Similarly, organizations that are building their business strat-egy around AI now, will remain competitive in future and have an edge over those who are doubting its capabilities. The optimum strategy to embed AI in a business is to ob-serve, learn and experiment. Organizations need to first deter-mine and evaluate the various use cases of AI and AI-led technolo-gies in their industry. The next step would be to identify how the technology can be built into their core business processes to drive efficiency. The idea is to create a competitive advantage in the mar-ket by deploying concrete & spe-cific applications, where AI creates business value. The golden rule for embedding an AI strategy is first implementing AI `inside' and then taking it `outside' ­ implying that organizations first need to de-ploy AI within, and only then sell or pitch it to their customers. At Tech Mahindra, we are bet-ting big on emerging technolo-gies like AI, Machine Learning (ML), Internet of Things, Robot-ics, and Analytics as part of our TechMNxt charter - a program rolled-out globally and designed by preempting and anticipat-ing our customer's evolving and dynamic needs. However, AI is not limited to any one organization, but is a col-laboration between many players in the industry that work in com-munion to render optimum bene-fits of next-gen technologies. One such case in point is the Acumos AI - a platform and open source framework that makes it easy to build, share and deploy AI appli-cations. The Acumos AI platform has been hosted by the Linux Foun-dation and built collaboratively by Tech Mahindra and AT&T. It sim-plifies development and provides a marketplace for accessing, using and enhancing AI applications. The time has come for orga-nizations to explore, adapt and implement AI and AI-led technol-ogies in their core business pro-cesses. It is all about `Enhanced intelligence & Collaborative dis-ruption' in this digital era'. Jagdish Mitra
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