MASTERCLASS Chapter 1.0
Unleashing A.I.
MASTERCLASS is a series of webinars, hosted by the Entrepreneurship Development Cell of Poona College of Pharmacy (BVDU, Pune), on varying and trending topics from the top-notch experts of the field. The first chapter of the same was conducted on the 29th and 30th of August 2020 on the topic “Artificial Intelligence & its Future in Pharmaceutical Science.” During the 2-day workshop, we called upon two eminent personalities namely, Ms. Preksha Kaparwan, Co-Founder and CMO of Alphaa.ai and Mr. Rajesh Vagh, Founder and Chief of Pharmatutor.
Day 1
Starting off with Day 1 of our Masterclass, Ms. Preksha showed how passionate she’s about AI as she talked about sci-fi movies and shared examples of movies including Blade Runner and Star Trek to let the audience visualize and aspire the aspirations of AI in future.
What is AI?
Simulation of human intelligence in machines that are programmed to think like humans and mimic their actions.
Machine learning:
Before bringing some real-time examples, she introduced the term machine learning and its correlation with AI.
She quoted machine learning as a resident under an umbrella of AI. Machine learning furthermore is another umbrella under which pattern recognition, image recognition, computer vision, and some other automated tasks resides.
Machine learning is a knowledge base for a machine to learn itself, following its classes like reinforcement and deep learning methods. We got an idea about how, to begin with constructing AI and also got a better understanding of the scope and reality of AI in present times.
3types of divisions AI holds:
- Artificial Narrow Intelligence (ANI)
- Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)
- Artificial Super Intelligence (ASI)
Ms. Preksha took the real-time examples of voice assistance machines like Alexa and Siri to show how actually their decision-making task has a narrow capability i.e. the machines have a single mode of decision making which is voice. So, we understood that these machines fall under ANI.
7steps to design, build, and scale AI:
- Problem
- Scope
- Team
- Data
- Test
- Optimize
- Scale
Busting the perception in the end:
The end of the session with Q&A highlighted a major question from our audience regarding human jobs being snatched by AI! Answering this Ms. Preksha had a clear answer, NO. She added value to this by quoting a significant reality that AI and machine learning can’t have emotions and emotions play an important role in the decisions every working sector has to make.
AI might have better analytical problem-solving skills but still, we’re the ones who build it!
Day 2
On Day 2 of our Masterclass, Mr. Rajesh Vagh gave us some insights into the Pharma Sector in India post lockdown. Starting off, he laid focus on the fact that we really lack a lot in developing A.I. in the Pharmaceutical Industry and he went on to share some really captivating positives of the Indian Pharmaceutical Industry. The fourth revolution in the world is being led by AI. Commenting on this fact our speaker made all of us know that in the coming times we are going to witness something new in the form of AI. Accounting to the fact above, he indicated a sudden boost and steady growth of AI is because of:
- Data volume generation,
- Increased research-based work,
- The demand for AI amongst the various sectors.
The fourth revolution in the world is being led by AI.
Applications of AI in the health sector :
- Disease Identification and Diagnosis
- Personalized Treatment
- Drug Discovery
- Clinical Research
In Disease Identification and Diagnosis, it’s often difficult to diagnose rare diseases in their early stages. But in China, there had been a competition between an AI system namely, the BioMind AI System, and some top-notch physicians, where the AI system scored 2:0 by diagnosing brain tumors and hematoma expansion.
AI getting implemented in drug discovery, personalized treatment, and clinical research would simply reduce the effective cost.
In the end, sharing some of the interesting and already implemented success stories of AI and the healthcare field, Mr. Vagh talked about Halicin a broad-spectrum antibiotic (first drug discovery via AI by MIT) acting against most MDR species. He also highlighted the collaboration of GSK and Google’s Verily presently working towards developing implants to alter electric signals in synapses in our nervous system.
“As more and more artificial intelligence is entering into the world, more and more emotional intelligence must enter into leadership.” — Amit Ray, Famous AI Scientist
It was a huge success for us as we saw an amazing response of more than 500 participants and our Youtube Live racking over 1.4k views for the two-day workshop. At last, we would like to thank all officials, teachers, staff, members, Ms. Preksha Kaparwan, and Mr. Rajesh Vagh for making this possible.
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