Bhubaneswar: The future workforce must be equipped to handle new challenges of Artificial Intelligence (AI), which has generated both hope and fear in the human mind, said All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) chairman TG Sitharam, Saturday.
Addressing ‘SOA Proxima 2024’, a two-day HR conclave at the Siksha ‘O’ Anusandhan Deemed to be University (SOA) here, Sitharam said that the unprecedented surge in disruptive technology like 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 emphasised.
“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,” 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 in 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, 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,” Sitharam reiterated.
He complimented SOA for organising 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 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 emphasised in the New Education Policy (NEP).
PNN & Agencies
