AI on the march

The arrival of Sophia, a talking humanoid robot in the city, caused quite a stir among the Dhakaites. Again the introduction of two robot waiters at a restaurant in Mohammadpur area was received by rapturous enthusiasm. Capable of displaying 50 facial expressions, Sophia can answer a variety of questions but still its stock of vocabulary is limited. But the robot waiters perform well because their duty is to take order from customers and serve dishes as ordered.

Now comes the news that artificial intelligence (AI)-driven robots have been developed in China, which work as beauticians. The robot is programmed to paint faces, apply lipstick colours to lips. Managers of parlours stand to gain because, these beauticians can complete make-ups and makeovers faster than humans and more importantly they will not be constrained by haggling with employers on duty hours, wage increase, overtime and bonuses.

The service rendered by waiters and beauticians, however, fundamentally differ from each other. There is no need for a waiter to have aesthetic senses -their greatest assets are likely to be their courteousness and efficiency. But an extraordinary sense of beauty is called for heightening the feature of faces according to the setting of nose, eyes, lips, ears, chin, cheek and foreheads with division of facial contours. Human beauticians use their uncanny sense in order to magnify or simply bring in sharp contrast some of the attributes of a face or a person. Not that they at times do not err in overdoing the makeup and make a mess of the concept of beauty; but most of the time they succeed in toning up the appeal of a face.

How does the AI-driven robot take a decision on enhancing beauty of a face? It does so with the help of algorithm. To it every face is a canvas on which to paint. But when it divides a face into modules by using the spatial arrangement, it gets its own idea of heightening the charm of the face it works with. Like its human counterparts, a robot beautician can as well misread a face and end up doing exactly the opposite of what was the actual intention. It can botch up a few faces on offer for reconstruction, where personal grooming is concerned.

All this is defeated by yet another Chinese effort. The world's first AI newsreader has been unveiled by Xinhua. Smartly dressed and capable of simulating popular newscasters, the robot will not grumble for being called into duty at odd hours and deprived of sleep. The digital version of a regular Xinhua news anchor will tirelessly keep the viewers updated of the latest developments. The prospect of this is unlimited so far as news anchoring is concerned. But at this stage AI is not at such an advanced stage where it can efficiently replace a human broadcaster.

China's lead in AI application is discernible. Once, Japan was thought to be way ahead in the application of the technology. In fact, the development of robots which can keep company of the elderly people and do some works for them went apace for sometime in that country. Notably, Japan is a country where people live longer and the elderly suffer from loneliness mostly because their able-bodied segment of population is workaholic and has no time to spend time with the old members of family.

Now, China seems to be taking some practical measures in order to save time, increase efficiency and cut inconveniencies in the workplace. Each of these developments may have transformed commerce and industries beyond recognition. The Chinese futuristic vision is not confined to beauty parlour and newsroom alone but spans up to the farthest point of the distant horizon and in space. The Chinese want, it appears, to achieve the number one spot on this score.