New Delhi, Dec 22 (IANS) Emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) should not be used to replace human intelligence, instead it should be used to amplify and augment their intelligence, says Indo-Canadian teen prodigy Tanmay Bakshi, known as the world’s youngest IBM Watson programmer.

Bakshi, 14, a cognitive developer, TEDx Speaker, Algorithmic as well as an author, was speaking at an interactive session with technology journalist Rajeev Makhani, organised by FICCI Ladies Organisation (FLO) here on Friday.

“Technology should be used responsibly and with the intent of not replacing your intelligence but allow it to make you more intelligent,” Bakshi said.

“When I use AI, my goal is to learn any information as quickly as possible and use it to amplify my capability.”

Bakshi believes that like every technology AI also has some ill effects, but technology is not going to overthrow humanity anytime soon.

“AI in its present form is nowhere near likely to overthrow humanity. The chances are very low and seems impossible for the next many decades.”

He also defied the myth that robots will ever replace humans or take away their jobs, rather it would add newer job profiles.

Bakshi, who is one of the youngest cloud computing developers in the world, started computer programming as fun and games at the age of five.

By eight, Bakshi designed his first major application. He released his first iOS app, called ‘tTables,’ that helped kids learn multiplication tables, at nine.

At 12, Bakshi became IBM Watson’s youngest programmer and even detected a bug in the system.

Bakshi also started his own YouTube channel “Tanmay Teaches” that is aimed at educating the youth on computing, programming, machine learning, math, science and neuro network.

With over 150 videos, the channel currently has over 156,000 subscribers.

He lives in Brampton, Canada, with his family who emigrated there in 2004.

According to Bakshi, AI is not limited to one field but applicable to business, entertainment, agriculture and healthcare etc.

But Bakshi is interested in AI’s prospects in healthcare, especially to help the disabled.

“AI is perfect for healthcare. It can help hundreds and thousands of people suffering from various diseases, including cancers and especially those who are disabled,” Bakshi said, adding that it can help countries like India.

He is currently working on a project, called “The Cognitive Story”, aimed at helping a disabled and housebound Canadian woman communicate through neural network technology that models her brain and nervous system.

The project, which is open-source initiative, applies cognitive technologies to help individuals who are unable to communicate to express their emotions.

The AI-based project also senses people’s intentions and articulates them to individuals or machines.

The child prodigy is also on a mission to coach 100,000 people to learn coding and to date has mentored more than 5,000 people.

–IANS
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