AI & ML - Powering the Agents of Automation: Demystifying, IOT, Robots, ChatBots, RPA, Drones & Autonomous Cars- The new workforce led Digital Reinvention facilitated by AI & ML and secured through Blockchain

CHAPTER 1

Introduction to

Automated Personal

Assistants: Past, Present

and Future

Automatic teller machines, automatic vending machines, automatic ticket vending machines, automated check-in counters, automated baggage check-ins at airports, and automated immigration counters at international airports are some of the machines we see in our day-to-day life. The various places where we use automated machines is shown in the following image:

Fig 1.1 Automatic machines for tickets, cash and products and at airports for check-in, baggage, and immigration

Completely automated retail counters (e.g. Amazon GO), hotels and restaurants, personal assistants such as Apple Siri, Google Home, Amazon Echo are the manifestations of automation enabled by advanced technologies like Artificial Intelligence and Machine learning that we are experiencing more and more.

The complete transformation that a retail store undergoes with automation is depicted in the following image:

Fig 1.2 Amazon Go: Advanced technologies to fully automate the retail experience

(Figure courtesy: https://www.amazon.com/ )

From ATMs of the yesteryears to the advanced voice activated personal assistants that understand our needs and moods to respond are replacing many jobs that were hitherto being done by human beings. This is a growing and irreversible trend of these manifestations of automation.

It is possible that in the future that when you pass by an ATM in a bank, it identifies you by name, recognizes your need for a loan and offers you att ractive terms on the spot while enticing you to its location using a voice activated and geolocation targeted message. This then would be the foreseeable future of the banking as we know. The same can be true for any area as the power of AI is considerably enhanced with the confluence of Big data, Cloud and Machine learning technologies.

Welcome to the world of humanoids and autonomous machines.

Fig 1.3 It is going to be difficult in future to identify whether you are dealing with a man or a machine!

We will take a close look at these agents of automation in the coming chapter as we analyze the anatomy of these machines and track their journey into the future.

CHAPTER 1

Disruptive Models

Led By Digitization

Introduction:

Home automation, factory automation, AI and ML led analytics are making deep rooted and disruptive impact on various aspects of our lives.

We now know that drones can fly, robots can jump, and bots can listen, talk, think, crawl, att ack and beat the world’s best in thinking games. Guess what would happen if all this combines into one unit or a body!

This is the power of Artificial Intelligence powered with the boosting characteristics of Machine learning and Deep learning! 2019 in many ways is seeing the convergence of a number of advancements in the adoption of cutt ing-edge technologies. It is now clear in no uncertain terms that the future is gett ing increasingly ‘Autonomous’. Artificial Intelligence and Machine learning are combining together for a rapid adoption of automation across the spheres of our personal and corporate lives.

The organizations that are winning the race for market supremacy in every field are the biggest exponents of these powerful technologies. With the increasing trends of digitization, decentralization, and automation, adoption of cloud and open source technologies is resulting in a manifold increase in data generation, analysis and consumption. The Big Data technologies are increasingly adopted and this has resulted in the rapid adoption of Artificial intelligence-led analytics, bolstered by the productive utilization of Machine learning algorithms effectively.

The organizations that are able to create a strong foundation of data-based technologies and exponents of data analytics are reaping rewards of their investments in such areas. According to the consultancy firm, Accenture, ‘automation, minibots, machine learning and adaptive intelligence are becoming part of the finance team at lightning speed’.

STRUCTURE:

Changing face of the new workforce

Fair and sustainable practices

OBJECTIVES:

In this chapter, we will briefly look at the different manifestations of the digitization and automation that are making an impact on various aspects of our environment and working life. We shall also look at some of the organizations that are working in the various aspects of digitization and automation. We will also see how Blockchain can help in the process of securing the automated world of the future.

Companies like Google, Amazon, Netflix, and Facebook have taken the usage of analytics and marketing automation to a totally different level which has further strengthened their market dominance in their respective areas. The term ‘Data is the new Oil’ has never been more true.

The current situation can be summarized in the following joke:

It may be a joke, but quite possible with today’s technology of Big Data, AI, Predictive Analytics, Social Applications, Recommendation Engines, Next Best Action, etc., all coming together.

____________________

Hello! Is this Gordon’s Pizza?

No sir, it’s Google’s Pizza.

Did I dial the wrong number?

No sir, Google bought the pizza store.

Oh, alright then I’d like to place an order please.

Okay sir, do you want the usual?

The usual? You know what my usual is?

According to the caller ID, the last 15 times you’ve ordered a 12-slice

with double-cheese, sausage, and thick crust.

Okay that’s what I want this time too.

May I suggest that this time you order an 8-slice with ricott a, arugula, and tomato instead?

No, I hate vegetables.

But your cholesterol is not good.

How do you know?

Through the subscriber’s guide. We have the results of your blood tests for the last 7 years.

Maybe so, but I don’t want the pizza you suggest. I already take medicine for high cholesterol.

But you haven’t taken the medicine regularly. 4 months ago you

purchased from Drug sale Network a box of only 30 tablets.

I bought more from another drugstore.

It’s not showing on your credit card sir.

I paid in cash.

But according to your bank statement you did not withdraw that much cash.

I have another source of cash.

This is not showing on your last tax form, unless you got it from an

undeclared income source.

To HELL with your pizza..!!

ENOUGH!!

I’m sick of Google, Facebook, Twitt er, and WhatsApp. I’m going to an

island without internet, where there’s no mobile phone line, and no one

to spy on me

I understand sir, but you’ll need to renew your passport. It expired 5

weeks ago.

CHANGING FACE OF THE NEW WORKFORCE: WELCOME TO ROBOTS, CHATBOTS, IOT DEVICES, CONNECTED CARS, RPA and FLYING DRONES

I had 1,000 employees last year. Next year, I am targeting 800 humans, 25 robots, 10 chatbots, and 1,000 connected things. Could well be the outlook of a ‘Human Resource Head’ in a thriving company of the future!

It is not just the organizations. The ‘Bot’ revolution is going to permeate every segment of our infrastructure. If the vision of global leaders like #Cisco has to be noted, connected devices are a part and parcel of every piece of our future landscape cutt ing across organizations, cities, functional areas and services, which is why Cisco calls it IOE or Internet of Everything! Source (#Cisco PR).

#Cisco filed US patent application 20170302663, an invention that it terms ~Blockchain-based #IoT [Internet of Things] Device Identity Verification and Anomaly Detection" that enables a #Blockchain-based system record changes to the conditions affected and captured by sensors (i.e., smart objects) in a network and instrumentalize network relationships and the data that the network generates in order to exercise control over those nodes is one of the many patents filed to integrate IOT devices into the Blockchain ecosystem. The need of the hour as we employ edge-enabled devices for computing to empower the once dumb IOT devices to do what they are supposed to do and not something dangerous!

Fig 2.1 Automaton across factories of tomorrow

In future, it is possible that organizations will be employing high levels of automation of manual and repetitive tasks across the length and breadth of their operations to interact with customers, employees, vendors, channel partners at various locations. These could be through self-servicing queries for information retrieved within the organizations or queries handled through external party API integrations.

There could be different bots and robots such as:

RPA or Robotic Process Management that involves streamlining the workflows with AI and Machine learning techniques as big data processing is already making its presence felt in a number of areas, which are as follows:

While some of them would be maintained on premise, a number of them could be maintained on Cloud-based platforms. To manage these different types of bots, which form a part of the bot-farm in the company, the organizations need to employ Robot controllers to manage different sub groups of bots across organizations. Planning, developing or deploying these different types of automation projects calls for different skill sets and facilities ranging from workflow designing, API integration and management, analytics and analysis of business across different functional areas to ensure the right types of reports and dashboards are created and made available to the concerned officials for live tracking of business processes and results these automation projects are designed to produce.

FAIR AND SUSTAINABLE PRACTICES–THE NEED OF THE HOUR FOR NEW AGE COMPANIES:

While machines permeate every aspect of our work environment, there are bound to be a lot of issues surrounding energy consumption, employee privacy and customer data privacy, etc. It is imperative that organizations follow green practices for energy conservation, give precedence to openness against spying with CCTV cameras and data warehouses, and high powered analytics-based targeting of customers intruding into their privacy.

The various tools of automation leveraging Artificial intelligence and Machine learning should leave behind a highly productive world with performance that is vastly augmented and menial tasks automated. This will enable all the citizens of the world improve their quality of life substantially and reaping the full benefits of technological advancements.

The increasing dependence on digitization and data-driven technologies facilitated by the IOT led automation reminds us of different types of possible threats as well. Data breaches and cyberatt acks have been rated as the most dangerous threats to the human mankind in the recent past.

It is said that the next world war is going to be fought in the cyberspace and not on the ground.

The October 2016 Mirai bot att ack that infected unsecured Internet of Things (IoT) devices like DVRs and IP cameras exposed the increased vulnerability of the #centralized corporations depending more on the burgeoning number of Internet of Things. If the changing landscape of the workforce composition in today’s companies, it is imperative to think that Blockchain as one of the important paradigms to be embedded to secure your future!

The Boeing 737 Max crash of October 2018 and March 2019 claiming more than 600 lives were apparently caused by the failure of automated pin board programs.

The unauthorized and unwelcome citing of drones flying over various vital installations in Kerala in March 2019 raises the spectra of misaligned pilots rehearsing before sinister att acks.

IBM and Samsung’s ADEPT platform (Autonomous Decentralized Platform for Telemetry) is one of the landmark initiatives for securing the growing population of the IOT devices which is supposed to cross 10 times of the connected human beings in the next 2-3 years!

Blockchain’s removal of the single point of failure, shared and distributed ledger, secure authentication of identity with appropriate permissions and authorizations in place to interact and end-to-end encryption of transactions, apart from many other advantages, fortifies the IOT devices against any Malware att ack, dis-incentivizing them and de-risking the entire ecosystem.

CONCLUSION

In this chapter, we looked at the various aspects of a digitized world that is witnessing the increasing level of automation. Industry 4.0, led by IIOT, and RPA led back offi ce automation and the employment of bots across various areas of organizational working is changing the face of the Talent Management department, which is calling for new skills and new approaches to keep the workforce engaged and managed. The increased ubiquitous digitization is offering enormous pools of data that is strengthening the muscles of the organizations who are experts in data analytics. The security and privacy requirements of organizations and the users of their products and services are becoming a major concern. Blockchain is offering an effective tool to scale automation in a secure and acceptable to all.

CHAPTER 3

Machine Learning and

Artificial Intelligence

INTRODUCTION

Artificial intelligence refers to the ability of computers to think and decide like humans. The advent of machine learning facilitated by the tremendous ability of e-commerce and social media organization to collect enormous amount of data of their customers and their preferences across various data points. This enabled these data exponents to continuously learn from their experience, thus refining their methods and methodologies to accurately target, cross-sell and upsell to their customers.

The exponents of AI and ML are able to corner a specialized segment of the consumer market by att racting customers in a number of ways. Companies like Amazon, Facebook, Netflix, Google, and Apple have excelled in leveraging AI and ML to the hilt. In this chapter, we will look at the utility of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning for various activities. We will discuss the utility of these technologies to various activities and see how they augment the productivity and capability of their exponents.

STRUCTURE:

Market potential indicators of the agents of automation

The rise of machine learning

Case study: The Intel® openVINO™ toolkit for advanced industry 4.0 applications

OBJECTIVES:

The objective of this chapter is to provide an understanding of the essential technologies that are powering the automated world. An understanding of the various applications, the types of algorithms and their utility across different actions to be performed to augment or mimic the human beings’ efforts will enable the readers to appreciate the ‘Agents of Automation’ in a detailed manner. This will help leverage them to enhance their quality of life and the productivity in future.

Amazon leveraged the power of its brand it cultivated to provide a phenomenal platform to buyers and sellers with no brand equity by extending them the benefits of its platform for listing fees and storage charges. For powerful and sought after brands, it offered an excellent platform and marketing opportunities with fine-tuned targeting strategies that maximized their sales through customized offerings. It milked the customer base and drastically improved its customer throughput and lifetime value by weaning away from competitors and also making their customers spend much more than they imagined.

Companies like Facebook, Google, and Apple offered new conveniences through value-added platforms like Chatbots, voice assistants and messenger bots to get their audience glued to their channels with unflinching loyalty, thus increasing