Information Technology: The

Happeneing
Siva Prasad
 Artificial Intelligence
• Intelligence displayed by machines

• In contrast to natural Intelligence

• Ability of a device to perceive its environment and take necessary actions

to maximise its chance of success at a particular task

• Machine mimics cognitive functions of human beings like Learning,

problem Solving etc.

• Applications - Driverless cars, health care, stock trading etc.

 Robotics

• Branch of engineering and science that deals with Design, Construction,

Operation and use of Robots

• Robots were mechanical devices envisaged to assist/substitute humans

• Robots with artificial Intelligence can soon replace Humans!

• Applications - Space explorations, Mine detection and deactivation,

Surgery etc.
 Deep Learning

• An Area of Machine learning

• Objective - to move closer to Artificial Intelligence

• Usually machines work on predefined algorithms and hence ability to learn

and adapt were limited

• Deep learning allows machines to learn from the environment and

experiences just like humans do
 Artificial Neural Netwrok
• Inspired by biological neural networks

• Ability to progressively improve performance

• Learn to do tasks by considering examples

• Helps deep learning

• ANN used for various tasks like - Computer vision, speech recognition,
Machine translation, Social network filtering etc.
 Cyber Physical System

• Integration of Computation, Network and Physical processes.

• Seamless integration of algorithms and Physical Components

• Example - Robotics in Disaster management

 Big Data

• 3 V’s - Volume, Velocity and Variety

• Applications - Policy formulations, Healthcare, Weather prediction,

Security and monitoring
 Internet of Things

• Network of Physical devices, Vehicles, Buildings and other items

embedded with electronics, software,network to collect and exchange
data

• Application - Traffic management, Driverless cars, Crop management etc.

 Augmented Reality

• Takes inputs from real world objects and augments sound, vision etc.

• Digital enhancement to enrich real life experiences

• AR is different from virtual reality

• Ex. Facebooks Occulus

• In news : First AR education and training institute @Varanasi

 Cryptocurrency

• Digital or virtual currency

• Not a fiat currency

• Computer generated currency

• Example -Bitcoins, Litecoin, etc.

 Li- Fi
• Li- Fi/ Light Fidelity - Visible light communication

• Uses visible light range of spectrum in place of radio waves to transmit

data

• Faster communication, Easier installation , better reach

 Project Loon

• Network of balloons floating in the stratosphere

• Balloons communicate with each other and with ground based devices to
enhance connectivity

• Extend connectivity to rural and remote areas in the world

• Google may also be able to predict weather

 Turing test

• It determines a machine's ability to show intelligent behaviour equivalent

to, or indistinguishable from, that of a human.

• CAPTCHA - Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers

and Humans Apart
Facebook Cambridge Analytica Scandal
 In news

• Mark Zuckerberg, CEO Facebook recently testified in from of the US

Senators following the incidents of Data Breach to Cambridge Analytica

• Zuckerberg published a personal letter in various paper newspapers

apologizing on behalf of Facebook

• Facebook Shares dropped by almost 18% in the past 10 days

• “#DeleteFacebook” movement
 Kogan and his app
• Facebook has allowed outside developers to build and offer their own
applications within its space since 2007.

• Hence an App developed by Soviet-born American researcher, Aleksandr

Kogan, called “This Is Your Digital Life” had the “permission” of Facebook
to use the platform

• The app presented users with a series of surveys. Kogan collected data
not just on those users but on their Facebook friends, if their privacy
settings allowed it

• This enabled him to collect data of about 87 million people

 Kogan and Cambridge analytic

• Political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica hired Aleksandr Kogan in

2014 itself to gather basic profile information of Facebook users along
with what they chose to “Like.”

• Kogan passed on the data he collected to Cambridge analytica, which will

further use this data for political targeting
 Facebook and Kogan
• Facebook claimed that Kogan “lied to us” by saying he was gathering the
data for research purposes and violated the company’s policies by
passing the data to Cambridge Analytica.

• While Kogan says his app’s terms and conditions specifically allowed
“commercial use.”

• Facebook says that after it learned of the situation in 2015, it removed

Kogan’s app and demanded that he “and all parties he had given data to”
destroy the data.
 Cambridge Analytica

• Cambridge Analytica (CA) is a British political consulting firm which

combines data mining, data brokerage, and data analysis with strategic
communication for the electoral process

• The company claims to use "data enhancement and audience

segmentation techniques" providing "psychographic analysis" for a
"deeper knowledge of the target audience"
 Psychographics

• Psychographics can be defined as a qualitative methodology used to

describe consumers on psychological attributes. Psychographics has
been applied to the study of personality, values, opinions, attitudes,
interests, and lifestyles

• Psychographic studies of individuals or communities can be valuable in

the fields of marketing, demographics, opinion research, prediction, and
social research in general
 Cambridge Analytica and Data

• CA used the data collected by Kogan for psychographic targeting or

modeling

• It uses such data to target voters with hyper-specific appeals, including on

Facebook and other online services
How CA uses data - An example

• Lets assume Mr.X hires Cambridge Analytica

• Using the data from Facebook, the pages I like, my answers to various
surveys, CA gets a fair idea about me. For example, they data suggests
that I am a honest person and would like to vote for honest people.

• This information would be utilised by CA and I would see Ad’s or videos

where Mr.X would be shown to me as a honest person, which will increase
my affinity for Mr.X and hence I might vote for him
How CA uses data - An example
• Another example, I am a scientist, and it would make me happy if the
person/party I elect makes higher allocations for research grants and
fellowships

• I might soon see a post/video/ image on my feed, where there is data

showing that during tenure of Mr. X the allocations for research grants
were higher than while any other candidate was in power

• This might be a true data or a made up data

• But seeing this, my political affiliations might be changed

Blockchain Technology:
Simplified
 Who keeps track?
• When I deposit Rs. 10000 into my account, my account balances
increases

• When I withdraw Rs.2000 from my account, my account balance

decreases

• Who keeps track of all the transactions in my account? -> The Bank

• The Bank maintains a ledger where all the transactions are getting
recorded
My Ledger with the bank
 Problem

• What if the ledger maintained by the bank gets destroyed?

• What if someone within the bank manipulates the ledger?

Distributed Ledger
 Distributed Ledger
• My account is being maintained by multiple/distributed ledgers

• Manipulations/fake transactions on one one ledger will be invalidated by

the others

• When I make a deposit I announce to all the systems maintaining the

ledger that I am making a deposit so that every ledger can be changed

• Similarly when I make a withdrawal or transfer Money to someone, I

announce to all those maintaining the ledgers so that the ledger can be
updated
 Distributed ledgers

• How do the systems maintaining the ledgers know that it is me and

authenticate the transactions are being made by me

• To authenticate every transaction, I use a special key to authorise the

transactions that I make; hence, if the key is being used the systems know
that I am making the transactions and the according the information in my
ledger (account balance) get registered
Cryptocurrency
 Cryptocurrency

• Digital/Virtual currency

• Intangible asset

• No central issuing authority -> Not a fiat currency

• Examples- Bitcoins, L itecoin, Namecoin and PPCoin

 Bitcoins
• Launched in 2009

• Started by an individual or group known under the pseudonym Satoshi

Nakamoto

• Similar to Unacademy Credits -> you earn when you watch more lessons
similarly, you earn Bitcoins when you solve complex maths algorithms

• Bitcoins are “Mined”; How fast you mine depends on hash rate

• Higher hash rate -> you can solve more algorithms/ solve at a faster rate;
 Bitcoins
• Bitcoin is randomly assigned to a system;

• To win a lottery the more the lottery tickets you buy higher the chances of
winning similarly higher the hash rate, higher the chances the bitcoin will be
allocated to you

• Why doesn’t RBI print infinite currency and circulate it? -> More the currency
in circulation lesser is the value

• Similarly, Bitcoins that can be mined are finite -> there will be only 21 million
bitcoins in total (i.e available for mining)

• When you earn bitcoins they are stored in “wallets” just like Paytm
Computers mining Bitcoins
Bitcoin will be randomly assigned to
one of the computers

Siva’s
Computer
Remember Distributed Ledger?
Remember Distributed Ledger?
• When my system gets assigned a bitcoin, all the other computers will
update that I have been assigned a bitcoin in their own ledgers

• Similarly, when I transfer my bitcoin to someone else using my key, the

transaction will be authenticated by all of the systems and all the ledgers
will be updated accordingly

• Hence, the bitcoin since it was originally mined by to the current holder of
that particular bitcoin; all the transaction details are maintained by these
ledgers hence no scope of fake transaction or fake bitcoin
 Benefits
• Easier fund transfer

• Anonymous

• Minimal processing fees

• Difficult to counterfeit

• Blockchain technology ensures safety from manipulations

• Safe from demonetisation (😜)

 Drawbacks

• Anonymity -> Money laundering, terror funding

• Volatility

• Theft or hacking-> If someone gets access to your account they can

swipe it clean/ use it for themselves -> nobody to complain to

• Not fiat currency