From the birth of computer science, there has been the question: Can machines actually think? Some remarkable philosophers have said that artificial intelligence is impossible, that it is morally wrong and that very concept of it is unintelligible. However six decades ago, father of computer science, posed Turing challenge. It said that age of machine intelligence would come when we could not distinguish between human and machine intelligence.
Today, we know computers can beat threat human champions cars can drive themselves (Google) and machines can follow elementary commands (Apple’s Siri). But rather than just domain specific game-playing or office management types of tools, question remains: Can machines graduate to actually follow and rival human intelligence?
New York-based company, IPsoft, is set to begin its proprietary humanoid program Amelia in June, which according to analysts, will considerably influence people-intensive outsourcing industry.
Special thing about Amelia that was known as Eliza in conceptual stage which is virtual engineer which imitates the way engineer works and aids replies technical queries over phone in fraction of time humans do at BPO firms. Automation is one of the biggest transformative developments of this decade and firm is still estimating best possible methods to monetise Amelia’s potential.
In company statement, Psoft claims Amelia that is software algorithm, works in 10 languages and would aid cut operational costs by as much as 75% as it can eradicate people which would be needed to work at call centres. IPsoft, established in 1998 promises 30-40% savings in distinctive infrastructure management costs. Company’s self-learning, self-healing software platform is able of giving basic infrastructure management support services with limited human intervention, says news report.
Experts think automation can save over 4-5 times amount of costs IT firms attain through software engineers working on outsourcing projects. Though, automation is extensively seen as disruptive threat to IT sector.
Labour automation could effect in up to 60-80% of cost savings for top outsourcing customers, as opposed to 15-30% cost savings from conventional labour arbitrage model of IT, according to data by outsourcing advisory firm ISG, for years, IT firms like TCS and Infosys hired thousands of engineering graduates and create large campuses to train them, believe experts. So-called “pyramid model” involving large numbers of engineering graduates every year brings down cost of software development and safeguarding projects, they say. Though, companies like IPsoft are quickly proving to be the threat to that business model.
IPsoft utilizes software robots to replace engineers on outsourcing projects for top customers like Comcast, the biggest cable operator in US. However Dube at recent conference addressed that it is a massive waste of human brain to be involved in tasks which can be carried out by automation, it appears to be anxious for hundreds of mid-sized BPOs which currently rely on labour-based activities.
Too frequently, we are excited to take course of studying specific body of knowledge and fighting combinatorial explosion by throwing computing power to distil plentiful amounts of knowledge into supercomputers. We ignore pivotal suggestion from Turing, which the scalable way to make machines think is not to reproduce adult mind, but to create child’s brain and then allow it quickly learn about environment in which it discovers itself. Adaptive learning is key to unlocking secrets of machine intelligence and fostering its ability to opponent human intelligence.
Influencing theoretical computer science principles including those taught by Turing, we are precipitously close to being first to sincerely answer six decade old Turing challenge. Idea wouldn’t be to just false human behaviour to win Loebner prize, but to make genuine emulation of human brain which is capable of adaptively learning just way child learns, and quickly becoming smarter and smarter by its interactions with humans.
Will machines steal your jobs? Let us ask ourselves what occurred to horse and carriage drivers. Invention of mechanized transport moved them up to driving cars today. People who worked with hand in car factories have now moved up to do computer-aided design and modelling of next generation cars. Requirement is mother of invention. Machines will be most loyal servants which will goad mankind to move brains higher up in value chain.