Days after tech pioneer Vishal Sikka stepped down from his position at Infosys as its CEO and Managing Director, he posted on his blog a speech that he had delivered to the graduating class of the University of Queensland in December 2016, where he was also given an Honorary Doctorate.
In his speech (above), he gave the students a glimpse of what to look forward to in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and how it would affect their jobs in the future. “In an age of automation, we need to learn, not only to keep up but, to live and thrive,” he emphasised. He confessed that the world is still at a nascent stage of technological developments in AI, and not very close to establishing a symbiotic relationship between intelligent systems and humans.
He addressed the fear that such developments could prove to be a deterrent in employment creation. But Sikka stressed that these developments are what will create jobs in the future. He demystified the concept of “innovation” and simply called it: “... the act of seeing something that is not there.”
Learning should never stop, even after completing formal education, he said, for it is through constant learning that we will understand computing and artificial intelligence as fundamental enabling technologies.
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