All
across
Asia, a hotly-debated topic amongst business leaders, government policymakers,
academics and industry experts is the potential impact that Artificial
Intelligence (AI) will have on society.
Understandably, some take a cautious view when it
comes to AI development, sometimes painting a grim, dystopic future where large
swathes of the population are rendered jobless, access to AI is not evenly
distributed amongst citizens, and privacy and civil liberties are
increasingly under threat from AI’s insatiable need for data.
There is no denying that AI will present a new set of
societal challenges that will need to be navigated thoughtfully and carefully
and, in particular, it will be critical for all organizations to build trust
in AI amongst their customers and stakeholders.
However, these concerns should not overshadow the
enormous potential that AI offers society.
Here are five key areas where AI has created remarkable developments and
improvements in Asia.
1.
Accessibility
Asia-Pacific is currently home to 690 million people
with disabilities. AI can help people with vision, hearing, cognitive,
learning, and mobility disabilities perform daily tasks more independently,
lead a richer, more productive life and participate more fully in society.
For example, Seeing AI is a free app
that leverages AI capabilities to identify a broad range of visual cues -
including faces, emotions and handwriting. That data is then converted into
audio descriptions for the visually-impaired. This enables the 285 million
people in the world with low vision to better navigate their day, making the
visual world more accessible.
2.
Agriculture
Today, Asia is the world’s most populous region with
more than 4.5 billion inhabitants, approximately 60% of the global population,
and this number is forecasted to grow to over 5 billion by 2030. This will put
incredible strain on the region’s already-challenged food supply chains unless
farmers can find new ways to keep up with demand, such as leveraging AI and
analytics to greatly improve their yields.
In India, Microsoft has
partnered with a non-profit organization, International Crop Research Institute
for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), to develop an AI Sowing App that sends advisories to farmers on
the optimal date to sow their crops, based on weather conditions, soil, and
other indicators.
The solution predicts the optimal
sowing period by using AI to analyze 30 years of historic climate data and
calculate the adequacy of rainfall and soil moisture using real-time data and
weather forecasting models. In addition, the program does not require farmers
to incur capital expenditure, such as installing sensors in their fields,
making this optimal for emerging markets.
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Insert Video for
News Center: Microsoft and ICRISAT - Bringing
Artificial Intelligence to agriculture to boost crop yield
3.
Climate Change
One of the most pressing challenges of the 21st century is the changing
climate, and how it threatens human health, infrastructure, and natural
systems. A leading cause of climate change is carbon emissions.
Microsoft is embracing the responsibility to
operate sustainably and reduce the environmental impact of its business. One of the ways it doe this is by enlisting AI's help to manage the operations and infrastructure
of our data centers. As a result,
less electricity is needed to fuel data centers’ computing and cooling
requirements. In fact, cloud
services are 93% more energy efficient and up to 98% more
carbon efficient than traditional enterprise data centers.
AI
technologies are also being applied beyond the data center to
improve the energy efficiency of entire buildings. In Singapore, approximately
one-third of the nation’s electricity is consumed by buildings. JTC, a government agency responsible for
the developing the nation’s industrial infrastructure, is taking a proactive
approach to address this voracious demand for electricity by centralizing its
operations on the Microsoft Cloud to monitor, analyze and optimize its
buildings. Using sensor data and AI-driven analytics, JTC can now identify and
rectify faults before breakdowns occur through a predictive model, resulting in
a 15 percent drop in energy cost avoidance.
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Insert Video for
News Center: How JTC is modeling what it means to make buildings
more energy-efficient and sustainable
4.
Education
Education is one of the building blocks for creating a
better future, and AI is
being leveraged to enhance the education experience for students and
improve outcomes in schools.
In Andhra Pradesh, a state in
southern India, Microsoft is partnering with the government to launch a new app that predicts which students are most likely to drop out of school.
Powered by machine learning, AI capabilities, and the cloud, this solution
processes complex data sets that include enrolment information, student
performance, gender and socio-economic demographics, school infrastructure, and
teacher skills, to look for predictive patterns.
This enables administrators and educators to intervene
early and target the most at-risk students with programs and counseling to
prevent dropouts. The app is already being used successfully by more than
10,000 schools in Andhra Pradesh, covering more than five million students in
2017.
5.
Healthcare
Lastly, AI technology has the potential to
assist healthcare providers in their quest to tackle some of the most prevalent
diseases we face today, as well as improve the quality of life for Asia’s
growing population.
In India, Microsoft is collaborating with one of the
largest health organizations in the country, Apollo Hospitals, to
develop an AI-focused network aimed
at tackling cardiovascular
disease, which contributes to nearly one-third of deaths worldwide. In India alone, nearly three million heart attacks
happen annually, and it is estimated that 30 million Indians suffer from
coronary disease.
By bringing together Microsoft’s AI expertise and Apollo Hospitals’
experience and knowledge in the field of cardiology, this partnership aims to develop new machine learning models to predict patient risk
for heart diseases and assists doctors with treatment plans.
These are just some of the amazing benefits that AI is bringing to society, though it’s clear that it is still in a nascent stage of its development. The story
of AI is still unfolding, and future chapters will be supported by positive, impactful anecdotes. After all,
with AI, we are not just amplifying human ingenuity, but the qualities that
make us human: Our caring. Our curiosity. Our collective desire to create a
better tomorrow.
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