Artificial Intelligence is Catching up and Zipping ahead

The term Artificial Intelligence [AI] was coined by John McCarthy – an American computer scientist- back in 1956. AI has been slowly, yet steadily creeping into life spaces, and especially workspaces. Going by the winds of change in the IT world, it is no myth that AI is set to overtake homo sapiens. For instance, who could’ve predicted that in just 6 decades, AI would walk step-in-step and literally zoom ahead?

Today, your life is a scheduled to-do list. That said, how do you recall the third task meant to be done on the 17th of February 2018 at 3:43 pm? Well, the obvious answer would be to set a calendar reminder. Done that already? Good going. Truth be told you seem to be wobbling with baby steps there. Sorry about the digression. But just wanted to drive home the obvious point that our brain requires the help of an app / bot for regular everyday tasks.

What can AI do that you can’t at work? All right, AI in rigid tech terms would be ‘an umbrella term that encompasses everything from robotic process automation to actual robotics.’ How does that help a work environment? What takes data rookies hours or data specialists minutes would take less than 2 (minutes, of course!) to deliver. Probably one of the biggest reasons for this year being one of poor job growth, particularly for IT folks.

Foxconn – the multinational Taiwanese electronics company that is the largest supplier for Apple and Samsung, had laid off 60,000 employees last year, no thanks to the introduction of robots. Mind you, that’s just one of the big stories.

Fortunately, the future all is not all bleak for the human race. Here’s why. While Artificial Intelligence can make life a whole lot simpler, it would probably fail in providing cognitive and impactful solutions. The pressure is on us humans, to beat the bot at its own game.

Closer home, we have even had start-ups reduce workforce because an astute engineer decoded automation of repetitive & mundane jobs. At BYT, as copywriters we are only too aware that Grammarly can be used by not the best copywriter to improve her grammar & ace us. Maybe not now. But who knows what the future holds?

AI is going to become pervasive and as professionals, we need to not just learn; we need to up-skill & adapt to the blistering pace of the world.