'Artificial Intelligence may give rise to new jobs'

Speculations about ‘automation’ sweeping the jobs in the market may not be true. It might fish out some existing jobs, but that would eventually give rise to a new job, opined an academician.

Chandrashekar Ramanathan, Dean of Academics, Indian Institute of Information Technology Bangalore (IIITB), during 24th International Conference on Advanced Computing and Communications said: “A telephone operator at a call centre may lose his job when AI comes into place. However, there should be an expert to tell the system what and how to do.”

“The situation will eventually demand a domain expert. A job pops up, this way. AI is a threat only to existing jobs,” he added. He said over the years, there is an increase in the number of programmes, and courses the colleges are offering in AI.

“The increase in faculty members in colleges reflects this trend,” he added.

“In IIITB, over 40% of faculty members do one or the other work related to AI and data science. Only 10% stick to pure Computer Science. The AI has become interdisciplinary, and this way, the dynamics of institutions is changing,” Ramanathan said.

KR Sanjiv, CTO of Wipro said that “mechanisms to regulate security issues” in industries were the need of the hour.

He said” “When it comes to AI, there are more nuances that are different from normal applications, and those need to be addressed by industries in the coming days using technologies. Otherwise, it will create havoc.” Professors, Vijay Kumar, from the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, and V Kamakoti of the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, were conferred with ACCS-CDAC Foundation Awards 2018 on Friday during the conference.