Augmented living

AI is going to make our jobs easy and increase productivity, but is far from replacing humans entirely

- PROF B. RAVINDRAN

IT IS 2047, in a remote village. A farmer wakes up and hears the tractor in the field. Sowing, harvesting, or replanting as needed. He walks around with his smart device that continuously assesses his crop health and places orders for fertilisers and plant treatment automatically. It also recommends where to ship the next harvest and what to plant the coming season. The farmer then discusses the recommendations with the device and decides the final course of action. Later in the day, the children in the house sit with their personal tutor—a smart device that is tuned to their individual learning needs and style. The classes are created on the fly by the tutor for the stage of the learning, that day’s level of alertness and engagement, and performance in the past few sessions. The classes are periodically reviewed by a parent or an expert. When the farmer feels unusually tired later in the day, he puts on his medical consultant—a device that evaluates his vital signs and recommends the course of action. If he needs attention, the device will set up a consultation with a medical expert on a remote platform, which can also escalate to a human doctor. Any medicine is delivered autonomously by a drone from the nearest health centre. Artificial intelligence is a generational technology. All the above scenarios and more will be made possible, in part, by advances in AI. These examples not only require AI but related platforms and technologies, such as drones and autonomous vehicles. AI acts as multiplier and allows us to achieve far greater impact with these technologies. AI started in the 1950s with the goal of understanding human intelligence well enough so that you can write programs to mimic it. The goal was not to create thinking machines that would compete with humans. One of the pioneers of AI, Alan Turing, wondered whether