Title: Artificial Intelligence (AI):  Past,
Present and Future
Time: 15.00-17.00, Wednesday, September 8th, 2021
Online Platform: https://zoom.us/j/98985232898

Speaker: Dr. C. Mohan

Distinguished Visiting Professor (Tsinghua University, China) & Consultant
(Microsoft, USA), Advisor (Tamil Nadu e-Governance Agency & Kerala
Blockchain Academy, India), Retired IBM Fellow (IBM Research, USA) & Former
Shaw Visiting Professor (National Univ of Singapore)

 Abstract: Ever since the conduct of the
historically famous 1956 Dartmouth Summer Workshop, which has come to be regarded
as the birthplace of the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI), significant
amount of progress has been made in AI with intermittent periods of intense
activity. Topics of focus for research and development have varied over the
last 6 decades. Unfortunately, during that time, many promises and
disappointments have also been associated with AI. Developments in related
areas of computer science (e.g., hardware and big data) have also been
significantly responsible for the recent renewed momentum behind AI. As
progress is made, while numerous benefits of AI are anticipated, many
apprehensions have also arisen with respect to the societal impact of AI. Of
late, there is also the widespread tendency to equate AI to just machine
learning and that is incorrect!

 In this talk, I will survey some of the historical AI
developments and then focus on the current areas of investigations across
academia and industry. Then, I will briefly touch on the remaining areas of
exploration for more positive outcomes to emerge from the adoption of AI
technologies in major segments of society at large. Some of the ongoing work in
my former workplace, IBM, will also be discussed. Both software and hardware
developments will be covered. I will also briefly touch upon on-going AI work
in Asia (e.g., China, India), Europe and USA. Even people outside of computer
science will be able to appreciate this talk.

Bio:  Dr. C. Mohan is currently a
Distinguished Visiting Professor at Tsinghua University in China, a Consultant
to Microsoft’s Data Team, and an Advisor of the Kerala Blockchain Academy (KBA)
and the Tamil Nadu e-Governance Agency (TNeGA) in India. He retired in June
2020 from being an IBM Fellow at the IBM Almaden Research Center in Silicon
Valley. He was an IBM researcher for 38.5 years in the database, blockchain, AI
and related areas, impacting numerous IBM and non-IBM products, the research
and academic communities, and standards, especially with his invention of the
well-known ARIES family of database locking and recovery algorithms, and the
Presumed Abort distributed commit protocol. This IBM (1997-2020), ACM (2002)
and IEEE (2002) Fellow has also served as the IBM India Chief Scientist
(2006-2009). In addition to receiving the ACM SIGMOD Edgar F. Codd Innovations
Award (1996), the VLDB 10 Year Best Paper Award (1999) and numerous IBM awards,
Mohan was elected to the US and Indian National Academies of Engineering (2009)
and named an IBM Master Inventor (1997). This Distinguished Alumnus of IIT
Madras (1977) received his PhD at the University of Texas at Austin (1981). He
is an inventor of 50 patents. During the last many years, he focused on
Blockchain, AI, Big Data and HTAP technologies (http://bit.ly/sigBcP,
http://bit.ly/CMgMDS). Since 2017, he has
been an evangelist of permissioned blockchains and the myth buster of
permissionless blockchains. During 1H2021, Mohan was the Shaw Visiting
Professor at the National University of Singapore where he taught a seminar
course on distributed data and computing. In late 2019, he became an Honorary
Advisor to TNeGA for its blockchain and other projects. In August 2020, he
joined the Advisory Board of KBA of India. Since 2016, Mohan has been a
Distinguished Visiting Professor of China’s prestigious Tsinghua University. He
has served on the advisory board of IEEE Spectrum, and on numerous conference
and journal boards. Mohan is a frequent speaker in North America, Europe and
Asia. He has given talks in 43 countries. He is highly active on social media
and has a huge network of followers. More information can be found in the
Wikipedia page at http://bit.ly/CMwIkP and
his resume at http://bit.ly/CMoNUS