It is often said that artificial intelligence (AI) is the new electricity. Dr Debashis Guha (Associate Professor and Director – Machine Learning, SP Jain School of Global Management) draws parallels between the evolution of electricity and AI in an article for Inc42, a leading Indian publication known for its coverage of the Indian start-up ecosystem.
The article, published on April 26, 2020, delves deep into the scientific and technological history of electricity for some clues about how the AI revolution might proceed in the next 50 years. Dr Guha draws several lessons from this historical analysis:
- The first is that we have only one part of AI technology now, the pattern recognition, or output part. We still need the input part, that will generate algorithmic power from generic computation.
- The second lesson is that we need more theory, a lot more basic engineering, and quite a bit of infrastructure building before AI can be deployed widely.
- And the last lesson is that despite the current hype, AI technology is still at an early stage, and the much-ballyhooed consequences of its rise are unlikely to play out any time before the second half of this century, or even later.
