Sunday, October 29, 2017

AI Making Inroads Against Outsourcing

India's outsourcing industry is increasingly shedding jobs, and Artificial Intelligence may be one of the reasons for it:

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/609118/india-warily-eyes-ai/

Indians too must become masters of AI - and we should use it far beyond merely the office buildings where people work today. AI can do work at the bottom of the sea, or deep underground, or in the distant reaches of outer space, where human beings might find it too dangerous to live and work. More and more young Indian engineering students are looking to Space as being the next big thing - and that's a field where India justifiably feels it holds a strong track record as well as competitive advantages compared to many of the other countries on Earth. Some Indian policy advisors, including the late Dr Abdul Kalam, have envisioned a future where India can tap the heavens to meet its growing resource needs. Indian mastery over AI may play a key role in bringing about that future.

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/603170/mining-24-hours-a-day-with-robots/

Incidentally, some ISRO insiders in-the-know have said that the upcoming SCE-200 semicryogenic engine, which is meant to burn liquid kerosene and oxygen to produce 200kN of thrust, will be ready for its first firing test before end of this year. This semi-cryogenic propulsion technology will be important for upgrading India's GSLV-MkIII rocket, and also for next-generation launch vehicles like the Unified Launch Vehicle family, as well as the Two-Stage-to-Orbit Reusable Launch Vehicle.

2 comments:

Pagan said...

Devika Narayan, a sociologist at the University of Minnesota who is researching the subject for her doctoral thesis, thinks automation may indeed be getting too much blame for the loss of jobs like his. Companies might well be talking up automation to mask some of their own failures, or to distract from the ill effects of other factors beyond their control, she says. She points out that many IT giants are flabby and overstaffed, and that American companies are now wary, given the U.S. political climate, of sending work overseas. “The extent to which automation is being exaggerated is still unclear to me,” Narayan says. She suspects that Indian IT companies “want to leverage this automation narrative to undertake structural changes, particularly downsizing.’”

Tambi Dude said...
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