Pakistani AI Expert highlights Need for Transforming Country into a ‘tech-savvy’ State

A Pakistan expert on artificial intelligence engineering, Dr Masood Mehmood Khan, has highlighted the need for transforming Pakistan into a technology-savvy and artificial intelligence-ready nation to meet future challenges. The Artificial Intelligence (AI) revolution is gradually making everyone realizes it’s a new world and we now live in the AI age. He said Pakistan cannot stay outside this new world and needs to get ready for it.

Masood Mehmood Khan, a fellow of Higher Education Academy (UK) presently working with the faculty of science and engineering at Curtin University in Perth, Australia said that artificial intelligence is an unprecedented form of revolution. It has changed and will continue to change the way we think, work, live and interact with the world around us. Also, it is taking over local, national and international businesses. It has changed streets, towns, cities, and countries. It has changed the modes and modalities of interactions between nations, groups, families and individuals, he said.

He further said that it is shocking to see how a general lack of understanding of AI is damaging the less and underdeveloped societies all around the globe. In many continents, policymakers are not fully aware of the implications and complications of AI-supported applications. People in developing and even in some so-called developed countries do not see how AI can affect their personal, social, financial and national interests.

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He said even some governments are unable to realise why their citizens are becoming more and more critical of their own values, culture and norms. At this point in time, AI has no ethical, legal or societal restrictions. Almost all genres of AI systems are now visible in our daily lives.

According to him, Pakistan needs to embrace a sectorial approach and focus on the most crucial sectors like people and society; national defence; agriculture; commerce; healthcare, and civil administration and services.

He said any nation or society cannot afford to leave the knowledge and understanding of AI to mathematicians, computer scientists and programmers. It is necessary for our policymakers to work toward building Pakistan as an AI-ready nation.

He also suggested that as a first step, we need to incorporate basic knowledge of AI in our high school curricula and add AI for beginners as a subject of study in grades XI and XII. This could be a sequence of two light yet compulsory subjects, each carrying fifty marks. Students must be required to score at least 60 per cent marks for passing them.

The grade XI course should introduce the theory and familiarise students with terminologies and applications. The grade XII course should require students to build a system and demonstrate a capacity to apply knowledge for solving a simple real-life problem such as examining an image or diagnosing an electrical fault.

He hoped that following these two courses, students in all undergraduate degree programs should continue studying existing and emerging applications of AI in their respective disciples.

Dr Khan said that by working more on AI, Pakistan will become a tech-savvy state very soon.

Source: Business Recorder