A THINKER TOO
Artificial Intelligence is taking over your smartphone before you even know it
Sit back and relax. Whip out your smartphone and start speaking to your digital assistant. After the chat, ask yourself: did you ever imagine speaking to some artificial intelligence-powered thing would be the norm one day?
As they say, the only thing constant is change. And technology changes as well, figuratively, by the second; blink and you’ll be left behind.
The world is not limited to new devices or the coolest gadgets anymore. Moreover, it’s what’s behind that gadget that is even more crucial. Emerging technologies are everywhere — AI, virtual, augmented, mixed reality, 5G, robotics, machine learning, Big Data, analytics, the Internet of Things. They are smart about everything and this tech could be right under our noses.
Take Artificial Intelligence (AI) for example. You use Siri or Google Assistant, but, sometimes, certain (mostly uninitiated) people dismiss it as just another app with some advanced tech. But it’s not; it’s more than meets the eye or your fingers that tap and swipe away. “We are building machines that learn from experience and produce outcomes their designers did not explicitly envision,” Peter Sondergaard, senior vice- president and global head of research at Gartner, says. “Machine learning and artificial intelligence move at the speed of data, not at the speed of code releases. Information is the new code base.”
How, then, do certain innovations exactly affect and teach us to be in step with the times?
“We see AI making smart devices
We see AI making smart devices even smarter with improved user experiences Ian Fogg, director of mobile and telecom analysis at IHS Markit
even smarter with improved user experiences,” Ian Fogg, director of mobile and telecom analysis at IHS Markit, says.
“The smartphone is the ideal training device for AI because it is highly personal and has a rich range of sensors.” It then spreads further: industry experts agree that a robust AI platform will make 5G — the next-generation mobile networks standard — even smarter.
Current Analysis’ Network Matter blog states that supporting 5G networks and benefitting from it are mutually exclusive. The role of AI along with data analytics, should be considered.
Peter Jarich, its vice-president for consumer services and service provider infrastructure, goes further by stressing that gathering all critical components provides a major link to 5G in three points: enhanced mobile broadband, massive IoT and critical communications.
“The role of data analytics is elevated with 5G,” he writes in the blog. “While 4G was often positioned as a ‘data’ network, this was only within the context of circuit-switched connectivity giving way to IP connectivity, even for applications like voice.”
“5G, on the other hand, is positioned as an intelligent network that supports data and analytics use cases, helping it reach out to drive new industries in a way that wasn’t possible previously.”
In fact, emerging technologies are overflowing with potential that British Prime Minister Theresa May has stated that, post-Brexit, the UK will be pinning its hopes on these, including AI, robotics and 5G.
You’ve seen or heard about 5G — some telcos have even declared they have successfully tested this, but industry experts still believe that, because the standards have yet to be set, it would come around 2020.
And it may not be that easy. Yes; tech, as easy as it looks also encounters speed bumps.
The present 4G LTE standard has speeds up to 200Mbps. Heck, there are still areas on Earth where 2G is being used, and not every metropolis has 4G LTE infrastructure. 5G, it has been reported, can hit up to 10Gbps — enough to download a full-HD movie in mere seconds.
For that kind of blazing speed, massive infrastructure investments are needed. Tech-savvy nations such as the UAE, and especially a hub like Dubai, are up to that task, in order to achieve a highly-advanced and connected place.
“When it comes to bringing an additional four billion people online, we know that mobile broadband will be instrumental,” Elaine Weidman-Grunewald, senior vice-president and chief sustainability officer at Ericsson, says.
“The fastest and most effective way to do this is by enabling costefficient upgrades from 2G to 3G, [then] to 4G.”
In the Middle East and North Africa alone, Gartner pegs IT spending to rise 2.4 per cent to $155.8 billion in 2017. And you can bet that the UAE will be at the forefront of it.
And with the rise of more data needing to be crunched and more people that have to be connected to each other, the demand of faster mobile requires, well, more speed.
Not all change is good, though. With the rise of AI coupled with robotics, real jobs are in danger. Look around; as a matter of fact, many companies are axing workers because automation saves them money. (That’s not even counting potential evil intentions of programming robots and using them for world domination.)
At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, what we’ve said earlier is what’s exactly happening: manufacturers are shifting away from the usual garden-variety offerings and are focusing more on emerging technologies.