Roorkee (The Hawk): As part of Institute Research Day (IRD 2023), Mehta Family School for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (MFSDSAI), Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee (IIT Roorkee) organises MFS Symposium on AI- Now and Beyond at BSBE Auditorium, New Bio-Technology Building, IIT Roorkee on March 14, 2023. MFSDSAI is involved in several teaching and research activities all around the year. The objective of the Symposium is to delve into the field of artificial intelligence (AI) and gauge its tremendous growth, with applications ranging from intelligent transportation to virtual assistants to allowing the synthesis of complex biological and medical information from genes and molecules into integrated knowledge at cellular levels. Also, the discussions try and delineate the relationship between big data and AI and the role big data play in defining the future of AI.
The Symposium was preceded by a Ground Breaking Ceremony that happened one day earlier, which saw the presence of Prof K K Pant, Director IIT Roorkee, Prof U P Singh, Deputy Director IIT Roorkee, Prof U K Sharma, Dean Infrastructure, Prof Durga Toshniwal, Head Mehta Family School, and Prof A K Chaturvedi, IIT Kanpur
The Symposium saw a gathering of eminent personalities. It stimulated brainstorming with the MF team on a groundbreaking session where the state-of-the-art academic infrastructure of approximately 70,000 sq. ft. is planned to house 25 faculty members, 160 B. Tech. students, 100 M. Tech. students and 75 PhD students. With multiple computational lab facilities and an auxiliary data centre, the school will be equipped to cater to the students and faculty members' requirements and aspirations. While ensuring flexible and compact internal planning of spaces, emphasis has also been given to creating a variety of community spaces. Accordingly, adequate spaces for discussions and interaction have been provided for creating a co-working and co-learning environment.
The Symposium was conducted in four sessions and concluded with a Valedictory Session. The sessions included discussions on the state-of-the-art developments in the field of AI, thereby providing valuable insights into AI’s role in shaping the future of society and mankind in general. In Session 1, Prof Shankar Subramaniam, University of California San Diego, USA, was the speaker and presented an overview of the interplay between big data and AI, considering whether big data is truly the sine qua non of the human future. Prof Noel Buckley, University of Oxford, UK, was the speaker in the second session. He discussed the application of deep learning and AI to accomplish the meta-tasks of classifying cell phenotypes. In Session 3, Prof Rajesh Gupta, University of California, San Diego, USA, was the speaker, and he explained how we could treat physical spaces and built environments as consisting of sensing, actuation, processing and communication resources that are dynamically discovered and finally in Session 4, Prof Ananth Grama, University of Purdue was the speaker, and he discussed a framework his team developed that provides a holistic view of sepsis and elaborated that their findings provide the basis for future development of clinical trials, prevention, and therapeutic strategies.
While talking about the ways in which big data and AI techniques have progressed, Shankar Subramaniam, Distinguished Professor Joan and Irwin Jacobs Endowed Chair in Bioengineering and Systems Biology, University of California San Diego, said, "Translating data into knowledge followed by implementation into actionable tasks will require ‘human-like intelligence but with a colossal processing capability making decisions faster than a human could’ - and this is the essence of the future of artificial intelligence. And this Symposium attempts to define the artificial intelligence of now and view the future through the ChatGPT crystal ball."
Speaking on using genome editing to introduce specific genetic changes and then reanalyzing the network topology, Noel J Buckley, Dept. Psychiatry & Kavli Institute for Nanoscience Discovery & Wellcome Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, highlighted, "Science, especially biology, does not travel in straight lines. Its journey is punctuated by inventions that allow us to ask the questions we always wanted to but had not the means to enquire. Such junctures can be seen in the seismic changes that followed on the heel of such discoveries as the polymerase chain reaction, the first draft of the human genome, the ability to reprogram human cells to a pluripotent state, the ability to edit the genome to test the connection from genotype to phenotype."
On New Services and Programming Infrastructure for Causally-Connected Cyber-Physical Systems, Rajesh Gupta, Professor and Qualcomm Endowed Chair, University of California San Diego, said, "Artificial intelligence has captured our imagination for its real potential to change our lives and living. The Symposium seeks to engage participants into discussions of technological developments underlying these advances and what the future may look like.”
Ananth K. Grama, Samuel D. Conte Professor of Computer Science, Purdue University, spoke on the Novel Matrix Decompositions and Applications in Clinical and Biological Data Analysis. He said, "As we embark on this journey together with an exceptional slate of presenters and with the support of the Mehta Family Foundation, I am full of hope and expectation for world-leading education, research, and real-world impact in artificial intelligence and machine learning at my alma mater."
In his address, Mr. Rahul Mehta, Founder, Bhupat and Jyoti Mehta Family Foundation, said, "I am thrilled to be here and supporting the “AI – Now and Beyond” symposium. Sharing knowledge about cutting-edge artificial intelligence and machine learning is key to the development of next-generation capabilities and applications. I hope all the participants come away with fresh ideas for developing and using these new tools.”
Prof K K Pant, Director, IIT Roorkee, also shared his valuable insight: “Artificial Intelligence is changing the world. The impact of artificial intelligence on society has been largely positive so far, bringing contributions that have made life easier for us humans, from being able to store and analyse data in multiple industries effectively, to improving our regular routines."
Prof Durga Toshniwal, Head, Mehta Family School, IIT Roorkee, shared her remarks: “The applications of Artificial Intelligence and Data Science are immense and it is being put to good use in almost all realms of human life. The Symposium has been an attempt to bring to light some important research developments in AI that impact the society.”
