Prospects of AI in Bangladesh

Dr Mostofa Sarwar, writes in the Daily Star:

"Today we are at the crossroads of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and AI is gradually occupying the centre stage of this unprecedented transformation. It is no wonder that all the tech giants are now involved in a relentless race to surpass each other in acquiring superior AI capabilities, while their non-tech clients and partners are heavily embracing AI to sharpen their competitive edges.?Harvard Business Review?in one of its recent editions suggested that companies should look at AI through the lens of business capabilities rather than a mere collection of technologies. Thus, AI should be integrated as one of the core components of any complex business process instead of being categorised as a supporting tool. Specifically, AI can cater to three important business needs: process automation, extraction of cognitive insights, and cognitive engagement with clients and employees. Interestingly, AI applications are no longer restricted to corporations, but is gradually encompassing a variety of domains, from farming to manufacturing, hospitality to healthcare, public services to professional services, judiciary to defence and others. Innumerable examples of successful AI applications can be cited to demonstrate the and ubiquity of AI and its far?reaching and profound impacts. It is now obvious that AI has started to fundamentally disrupt the way we live and work. This will continue to happen in the foreseeable future with even greater speed, intensity and coverage. As AI penetrates every sphere of human life, it is imperative for us to formulate a roadmap to see the opportunities and identify its likely threats. Like any other technology, AI is neither an unmixed blessing nor a silver bullet for all our problems. Rather, AI poses some genuine concerns that must be addressed with appropriate strategies."

I fully agree, and without the correct systems set in place, this AI powered boom could see a huge shift in the IT market, and all other sectors too, slowly.

In another article in the daily star, Google AI teaches itself Bangla without any training.

He said advanced artificial intelligence was mostly to cause job losses among so-called “knowledge workers,” such as writers, accountants, architects and software engineers.

In a third article, the daily star states "Bangladesh stands at the threshold of a paradigm shift in technological development as it is poised to change gear into a faster mode of economic development, and realising its vision of becoming a developed nation by 2041. But will it be possible without making use of the modern tools in science and technology?"

Great question! It won't. No chance. We need to automate systems of logging, automate market data research, automate bangla teaching and learning models and have a nationwide campaign to roll-out the benefits of AI, to teach the person with a job how to integrate AI into their job description and tasks, or risk losing out to someone who has upskilled in these areas. This is the real shift. The time still exists to upskill yourself and learn to prompt AI chatbots the best you can.

Can we do it in Bangla? Not yet, I'm afraid. But a company called Bengali.AI is making waves as it's the first to undertake a structured system where an intelligent system can do the following in Bengali:

"Detect printed or handwritten text in images.

Detect and Recognize Objects.

Recognize Celebrities or Landmarks.

Describe images with meaningful sentences."

Meanwhile AI services have already started selling on the market with the top hit being Bangladesh.ai who offer to "save cost, convert more consumers, accelerate speed-to-market, increase customer delight, and achieve other important goals and objectives."

Citing 联合利华 , bKash Limited , 英美烟草 , IDLC Finance PLC and Telenor as it's clients, this company looks like it's ready to make big waves in the AI-automation space in Bangladesh.

However, who is looking out for the SME's? Who is looking out for the new entrepreneurs who are just getting their businesses off the ground?

Here's a list of the top AI startups in Bangladesh. Hope it helps!

One thing is for sure: AI learns whatever we teach it - so please teach it helpful things and how important the human-society aspect is to it's existence. Do not, for instance, ask it to plan out terrorist cyber-attacks or spit out fake news to further delineate the population from what is truly happening in the world. I know this plea is a useless one as human beings have always proved to be utterly self-destructive when faced with prospects of immediate gain and done anything to get ahead. But maybe, with the new generation of developers and dreamers - they can see a new way to build AI generated apps and systems for Bangladesh that can bring about radical social change and also accelerate efficiency in the workplace.