ROBOTIC COOK

Are you a user of A r t i f i c i a l Intelligence? Most of us would say, ‘ no’ and most of us would be wrong.

We tend to think AI is used by large enterprise harnessing supercomputers which try to outwit humans at things like chess. The year gone by, has seen AI making an uninvited backdoor entry into our lives. A global study by enterprise software company Pega systems Inc. reveals that most consumers are surprised to learn they are already users of AI. Only 34 per cent of the respondents thought they had directly experienced AI, when in fact 84 per cent had actually used at least one AI- powered service or device — like virtual home assistants, intelligent chatbots, or predictive product suggestions. Less than half, knew that Microsoft’s virtual assistant Cortana or Amazon’s Alexa, iPhone’s Siri or the Google Assistant actually ran on AI. But make no mistake. AI is here; we might as well get used to it and make use of it.

Research by IT services leader Accenture, last week suggests that AI could pump nearly $ 957 billion into the Indian economy. Nice, if rather than overhyping the technology itself, businesses focus on using AI to provide real value for the rest of us. And as we glide into 2018 it looks like hundreds of Indian startups are doing just that. From banking to healthcare to education, they are creating a range of solutions, from AI- driven ‘ bots’ to actual humanoid robots. What’s more, they are making it easier than ever for other developers to create intelligent apps or solutions.

D e l h i - b a s e d Engineer. ai has created a platform called Builder where one can use re a dy- made software building blocks, to achieve huge economies in the creative p r o c e s s . Another startup Ab sentia has launched an AI- based animation tool Norah

AI which can be used to g e n e r - ate interactive content from animations and textures, to mobile games.

On this focus on page today, we innovative products and solutions that will touch you in the months ahead, all of them backed by brainy computer technology trying to mimic Man! Feed

in your f a v o u r i t e recipe. Put in the ingredients and Julia, the personal robotic cook from the startup Nymble, will cook up the dish for you — as long as it is a one- pot meal. That means all Asian curries, dal, sambhar, rasam, pasta, soups, rice dishes, salads but not chapattis. A built- in HD camera let’s you see what’s cooking even if you are not around. Julia is in prototype stage and Nymble hopes to start taking orders this year.