business

Updated: Dec 05, 2016 11:02 IST

While on their way to Jupiter, a ship’s crew gets double crossed by its sentient computer, Hal. Slowly, the “infallible” Hal manages to kill most of the astronauts. A fierce battle ensures between Hal and the lone surviving astronaut, Dave, before Dave finally manages to shut down the computer.

When ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ was released in 1968, the epic science-fiction film was more of a fiction -- but no longer.

Forty nine years later, machines are doing almost everything that human intelligence can do -- analysing customer behaviour, helping doctors diagnose diseases better and creating individual learning programmes to name just a few; functions commonly known as artificial intelligence (AI).

No wonder that SoftBank founder and CEO Masayoshi Son said at the HT Leadership Summit on Friday that machines, which are multiple times more intelligent than Albert Einstein, will be an essential part of our future. “I am better in forecasting, predicting, talking about 30 years later, than three years… for the first time we are facing something that is so much smarter than us.

Technologies, such as AI and virtual reality, are increasingly being used in various fields, including healthcare, retail, e-commerce, education and real estate, to understand the buyer better and boost sales. It’s like Iron Man’s JARVIS, the AI (artificial intelligence) assistant that gives Tony Stark all the information he needs, helps him fight bad men, manages his estate, house and even business.

IBM’s cognitive computing platform, another name for AI, Watson, is playing a major role in bringing technology into real life. One of the early adopters is Manipal University, which is using it in Oncology. It is impossible for a doctor to read every research paper that comes out on cancer treatment – last year, 130 of them were published every day – but Watson can go through them, analyse them and suggest better ways of treatment.

It is also being used in the field of retail, fashion and e-commerce. Soon, from searching a red shirt or a blue suit based on textual entries, Watson will help in searching them through images, videos and voice. “Rather than searching for products, you will be able to search for occasions -- for a marriage or a casual dinner,” said Nipun Mehrotra, vice-president, strategy and growth initiatives, IBM Asia Pacific.

Watson is also learning culinary techniques in some of the best colleges in Bangalore, and has been assisting chefs with recipes while cooking. It is also helping designer create new designs.

Snapdeal, India’s third-largest e-commerce company, is working on a new system, which will extract information from a picture, identify the dress, pattern, style and other information, and throw up relevant choices for its buyers, says Rajiv Mangla, chief technology officer, Snapdeal, which recently bought deep learning company Fashionate.

In India, almost every second day a new startup is coming up in the AI space. A little more than year ago there were 20-30 of them. Now there are more than 150.

Fashion e-tailer Voylla wants to use AI to play the role of a shopping companion. A buyer can take a picture of the dress or selfie, and the platform shows what will go best with it. “We are mimicking human behaviour and automating it,” says Jagrati Shringi, founder of Voylla.

Soon, Shringi will help her buyers design their own jewellery using AI!

For companies like Paytm, the country’s largest mobile wallet company, which also has the ambition to become a full-fledged bank, AI can help in detecting frauds, upselling services and understanding the needs of consumers better.

“The thing with mobile is that people don’t like typing, so the more you can reduce typing, the more friction free it will become,” says Amit Singhal, former head of Google Search, who now sits on Paytm’s board. “Even if I can reduce three clicks (while making a transaction), and give them (consumers) the destination faster, user will be happy.”

Real estate companies are still taking baby steps in the field, but the opportunity is huge.

“So far you can just view things. You can’t interact with them… We are working with real estate companies to offer buyers options to create models, finishes, use furniture, paints – all within the same dimension,” says Goutam Tewari, founder and CEO of SmartVizX, a virtual reality startup.

AI is coming to education, too. “If a professional enters the requirements, our algorithm will pull out material from different courses, customise it and offer a unique course,” claims Bradley Loiselle, CEO of betterU, an education marketplace.

Another online education platform, Pluralsight, wants to create customised courses based on learning styles. “AI will help in understanding what kind of learning the student needs – fast, slow, or dedicated (who wants to follow every step from A to Z), and create hyper-personalised ways of learning,” says Arun Rajamani, country head of Pluralsight India.

It looks like SoftBank CEO Son is on the right track. He’s building a humanoid (a robot that looks like a human) called Pepper (Pepper Potts is also Stark’s girlfriend in Iron Man, and the CEO of Stark Industries), which will understand human emotions, and react accordingly. “I am creating robot with a good heart,” says Son.