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International Symposium on Artificial Intelligence in BSA Crescent University

B S Abdurrahman UniversityChennai: On the rainy morning of November the 6th, B. S. A. Crescent University played host to the International Symposium on Artificial Intelligence, which was scheduled to go on for two days. It involved the presence of some eminent personalities, as well as some upcoming trendsetters in the field of AI. The much anticipated event was flagged off with the recitation of the Quirath.

B S Abdurrahman University

The welcome address was presented by the Registrar, Dr. V. Murugesan. Followed by this, was a brief outline of the event, and an introduction of Professor Scott Fahlman, of the ’emoticon’ fame, by Dr. P. Sheik Abdul Khader (Dean, SCIMS). He also welcomed, Mrs. Fahlman, who was here to deliver another lecture on “Reggio Emilia Approach of Imparting Education” at the university. The Dean went on to give the guests a brief history of the esteemed university, and also about the School of Computer, Information & Mathematical Sciences (SCIMS). He concluded after mentioning some of the highlights of Professor Fahlman’s inspiring career so far.

The presidential address was delivered, by the guest of honor, Professor Scott E. Fahlman, Emeritus Professor at Carnegie Mellon University, USA. The professor delighted everyone, by starting his speech off, with a few sentences in Tamil. He spoke a little about his experiences in India. He was very thankful to the management, for making his stay a comfortable one. He also happened to tell a little story about Halloween. Professor Falhman said he was very much looking forward to the day.

The vote of thanks was given by Dr. Raja Prabhu (Director -International Affairs). He gave a little insight on the planning that had gone on, in order to make this symposium, a reality. He thanked all the Deans, HOD’s, and all of the distinguished faculty members, for their support & co-ordination.

Prof Scott’s Key note lecture on Introduction to AI:

Professor Fahlman began his keynote lecture, by speaking about how AI is the trending topic everywhere, and how a lot of faculty from universities were being poached by companies for research purposes, since there was only a limited number of people who were capable of working with AI. He revealed that a lot of companies in the US, like Google, IBM, Uber, etc., were all investing in AI, for their growth. After this, he spoke about a few success stories on early AI, such as the first automated vehicle – “Nav Lab” in 1986. He confessed that the “Handle” robot, designed in 2017, by Boston Dynamics, was his favourite robot. He then spoke about, how in the early stages, people tried to solve AI backwards. He said that AI struggled, when it came to things that humans do with ease, but yet, it solved things which were extremely hard for humans to do.

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The Professor explained why Deep Learning had suddenly become such a phenomenon. A key discovery made, in this respect, was that of the GPU: which were generally used for gaming, were also found to be deeply useful in this field due to its greater computing power and duly got far reaching results. He highlighted that everyday human skills was a concept that was yet to be grasped fully by the AI. Professor Fahlman said that there existed 4 splits in the AI community. He gave his view, on how we needed to focus on big steps in the development of AI, rather than just incremental steps, given that they were towards the right direction.

Professor Fahlman said that big data was not the only thing that the AI researchers needed, but that, actual “knowledge” gathered from the data, was more important than the data itself. He said that people’s views on how AI could be a threat to humanity, were opinions largely based out of movies, and how it was not true. He justified his statement

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