Bhubaneswar, Apr 27 (FN Bureau) The future workforce must be equipped to adapt to the new challenges of Artificial Intelligence (AI), which has generated both hope and fear in the human mind, said Professor (Dr.) T.G. Sitharam, Chairman of the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), on Saturday. Addressing ‘SOA Proxima-2024’, a two-day HR conclave at the Siksha ‘O’ Anusandhan Deemed to be University (SOA) here, Sitharam stated that the unprecedented surge in disruptive technology like Artificial Intelligence (AI) has evoked both hope and fear in the human mind.
“But the need of the hour is to equip the future workforce to adapt to such new challenges,” he emphasized. “Every time we have encountered new technology, it has injected some fear in the human mind, but we have learned to adapt to it, and we must do so to face the AI challenge,” Prof. (Dr.) Sitharam added. He stated that questions being asked today include: Will humans be truly replaced by AI? Will there be massive job loss? Will machines become super-intelligent, and will humans eventually lose control? He addressed the conclave attended by HR professionals from around 100 industries from across the country and students of the university. “These questions are alarming and need to be addressed with diverse opinions and thought processes,” Sitharam highlighted.
“It is humans who have created these technologies to make their tasks easier and have consequently found themselves in a difficult situation,” he noted. Stating that the existence of AI was unknown a decade ago, Prof. (Dr.) Sitharam pointed out that it was successfully exceeding human performance in different fields, including music, art, and literature, and delivering at an unimaginable speed. The AICTE Chairman, however, recalled that humankind had also been apprehensive about new technical developments like computers, mobile phones, and the internet earlier but learned to embrace them eventually. “The same could be done with AI and other disruptive technologies with the right guidance of the academic and industry community and proper implementation of their suggestions,” he said. The AICTE Chairman stressed, “We have to work together to create a workforce that is equipped to handle emerging technologies.” He mentioned that AICTE was taking serious measures to adapt Indian students and faculty to the use of AI, ranging from bringing courses in emerging technologies to conducting Faculty Development Programs on AI and Data Science (DS).
“Our only goal is to upskill and reskill our students and faculty members with advanced technologies,” Prof. (Dr.) Sitharam reiterated. He complimented SOA for organizing an event like ‘Proxima-2024’, a platform for intellectual thinking, innovative ideas, and experiential learning, which would harness the potential of the students. SOA Vice-Chancellor Prof. Pradipta Kumar Nanda, who presided over the meeting, said that the Deemed to be University was initiating steps to connect the institutes with the industry as emphasized in the New Education Policy (NEP). The inaugural session of the conclave on Friday was addressed by former Managing Director of Tata International, Dr. Sandipan Chakravorty, who said that students would soon face a new world and would need to change themselves to adapt to the new situation. “We are on the threshold of the fifth industrial revolution involving AI, Internet of Things, robotics, and semiconductors,” he said, adding that students would have to learn four things to keep pace with the changing world: Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence, digitization, and finance. “What is important is how you perform, and the need is to keep learning and updating yourself,” Dr. Chakravorty said.