Where Tech Meets Transformation: Varad G Varadarajan on AI and the Future
In the ever-evolving landscape of technology, Varad G Varadarajan, Founder and CEO of ConnectedWorld Technology Solutions, is known for his innovations. With over three decades of experience in Technology Management and Consulting, Varad isn’t just building a company with ConnectedWorld Technology Solutions – he’s shaping the future. A tech veteran with decades of experience at giants like AWS and Salesforce, Varad is now spearheading a mission to unlock the transformative potential of AI, machine learning, and cloud technologies for businesses worldwide. His passion for innovation extends beyond the corporate boardroom – Varad is an ardent blogger and author (under the pen name JeeVa), sharing insights on the cutting edge of technology. In this exclusive email interview with Dr.Subramanian S Iyer, Varad dives into how he leverages his expertise to fuel ConnectedWorld’s vision, the trends he sees revolutionizing industries, and the ethical considerations that must guide our ever-evolving technological landscape.
1. Can you tell us about the journey that led to the founding of ConnectedWorld Technology Solutions and the core mission that drives your company?
ConnectedWorld Technology Solutions was founded out of a desire to help companies transform themselves in theage Artificial Intelligence.
As we all know, Artificial Intelligence (or AI) has advanced rapidly in the last few years. This has opened up enormous opportunities for companies to innovate, simplify and automate their existing processes.
ConnectedWorld’s core mission is to provide software solutions for businesses and customers, to increase productivity, lower costs and improve the overall quality of life. Focusing more on cloud and AI, we help companies identify the right business problems for AI, develop the solution, set up adequate safeguards to use AI responsibly and create a process for continuous improvement. We also provide training for companies (and individuals) on AI technologies.
I started my career as an Electronics engineer from IIT Madras and spent over three decades in the USA working at leadership levels in Technology and IT Consulting companies.I worked at and / or consulted with many Fortune 500 enterprises as well as startups in numerous industries and helped them build innovative business solutions using technology. I worked at leading software companies and helped design, build and release software products and services.
I hold advanced degrees in Computer Science and Management from prestigious universities in the USA. My education and work experiences have helped shape my thinking and nurtured my passion to use technology effectively to solve business problems. This eventually became the core mission for ConnectedWorld.
2. Please explain to us what is artificial intelligence and give an example of how AI is applied on a daily basis?
Artificial Intelligence refers to the intelligence exhibited by machines, as opposed to natural intelligence which refers to intelligence exhibited by humans and other living things.
We see numerous examples of AI in daily life today.
For example, a mobile phone can automatically recognize the owner’s face to unlock the phone. This is AI image recognition technology.
We can speak to AI voice assistants (like Alexa, Siri or Google) and they will be able to respond to us in an intelligent way. This is speech recognition and synthesis in action.
Google and Tesla have announced self-driving cars that can operate without a human driver. A few companies are making robot vacuum cleaners that can automatically clean the floors, by navigating past obstacles. These are examples of systems that use machine learning.
India’s spacecraft,Chandrayaan was able to use AI to decide on the best landing spot on the south side of the moon, and land safely without human intervention, an extremely difficult feat!
Many more examples of AI are appearing every day.
3. How would you describe machine learning to a non-technical person?
Machine learning refers to the ability of machines to learn without being ‘explicitly’ programmed.
Before the advent of machine learning, programmers had to write the rules, in the form of software, to tell machines how to solve a problem.
This is no longer needed with machine learning technology. Computers know how to write the rules themselves to solve a problem.
For example, if you train a machine with lots of pictures of dogs and cats and tell it which one is which, it will write the rules to distinguish a dog from a cat. The next time you show a picture, it will automatically identify it correctly. We call this supervised machine learning. The machine is trained fromdata, in the form of lots of examples. There are many other types of machine learning as well.
4. It is still the early days of AI, and the global AI market is expected to exceed $2 trillion by 2032; some call it a gold rush; what are your thoughts on this?
AI has the potential to greatly advance human civilization. Companies can reduce costs tremendously by using robots and other AI software. They can also increase revenue by identifying new business opportunities that did not exist before AI.
For the common man, the quality of life can improve greatly. AI can do tasks that are tedious, repetitive or difficult for humans. This can free humans to do more creative and interesting work.
However, there is also a dark side to AI. It has to be used responsibly. It should not get into the hands of bad actors. It has to be used fairly and ethically to benefit everyone. Countries have to enact laws and put governance in place to ensure it is used safely.
We are still in the very early days in AI. For example, when the Internet appeared in the early 90s, no one knew where it will take us in the next 30 years. The Internet created the Dot Com boom. Soon every business became a dot com business! The initial hype and exuberancewere followed by a crash. Then things stabilized and people figured out the right way to use the Internet. This was followed by the Mobile revolution, the Cloud revolution, the SAAS revolution (software as a service) and now the AI revolution.
Many companies that shaped the Internet then (like Netscape) are no longer around now but they served as the visionaries for a new era. Some companies that saw the benefits early (like Amazon in 1994, when they created an online bookstore) reaped huge rewards from Internet and subsequently from the Cloud revolution.
Like the Internet, AI is shaping up to be a game changer. At this point many new companies and business models are emerging around AI. Some might survive while others might not. The ones that over hype the technology or do not have a strong business case for AI will probably fail. But like the Internet, things will stabilize after initial euphoria and result in long term productivity gains.
In that sense, it is similar to the Gold Rush. Companies must not fall into the FOMO trap with AI (Fear of Missing Out). Before implementing AI, companies must carefully evaluate the business case, the expected benefits and any unintended consequences from AI.
There is a great demand for AI chip makers today, because they are the key to building AI systems. In some sense, these chip makers are like those who supplied the shovels and axes for the Gold Diggers. They provide the key infrastructure that is needed for AI. Companies that will truly win the AI race are those that have access to the data. Data is critical for machine learning. In the AI era, data is like the new oil.
Like any new technology, there will some hype around AI followed by some level setting of expectations. But the long-term benefits of AI are undeniable. If used responsibly and thoughtfully, companies stand to reap huge rewards.
5. Given your focus on AWS, how do you think cloud services are evolving to meet the increasing demand for AI-driven solutions?
Two factors that drive AI are the increase in data storage and the increase in computing power. The cloud has fuelled this growth by providing cheap and affordable storage as well as computing power.
Generative AI and Large Language Models are driven by neural networks with trillions of parameters and require hundreds of Tera flops in compute power.
The Cloud is a natural ally for AI, because it provides the ability for companies to host large expensive models centrally on the cloud, but provide access to millions of users at low cost. ChatGPT from OpenAI is a great example. It runs an expensive model called GPT-4 in the cloud, but provides access to millions of users at a fraction of the cost.
AWS in particular, has been a leader in the Cloud and is well positioned to play a big role in the AI revolution. It has a cloud-based AI platform called SageMaker that helps companies build and host machine learning models. It has a service called Bedrock that provides access to numerous AI models from Amazon and third-party providers through one common interface (API). And it provides many more AI services to rapidly build systems with low code, without the need for AI experts.
6. What are the ethical concerns of developing AI that is smarter than humans?
As AI systems become smarter, the concern people have is whether they can start controlling humans. It seems like a remote possibility at this point but it is something that should be closely monitored.
AI systems are smart in narrow domains (for example they can beat a human in chess, navigate around obstacles, write essays or answer questions on a certain topic). But they are yet to exhibit general intelligence to solve a wide range of problems like humans can, often without prior training. Experts call this as Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). We are still not there yet, but we are making rapid progress towards it.
As we get closer to it, ethical concerns around AI will definitely increase. For example, can AI harm humans? Can bad actors misuse AI for their benefit?
We are already seeing people use AIto generate fake news.
Perhaps foreseeing something like this, the late science fiction writer Isaac Asimov penned the famous three laws of robotics in his novels. He said all AI systems should follow some basic laws. One of them was that a robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
As AI systems become smarter, we will definitely need to have stronger laws to protect humanity. We will need to set up guard rails around AI systems. Countries must set up policies to limit what AI can and cannot do. Asimov’s laws of robotics are no longer mere fiction!
7. Data integrity is a major concern for the worldwide pharmaceutical sector. Can artificial intelligence aid with forensic auditing?
AI systems are already assisting companies in identifying fraud, embezzlement and data breaches. AI systems can be trained to look for patterns in data that point to fraud or misuse. They can monitor access to sensitive data. They can be trained to look for anomalous events that most likely point to a data breach.
AI systems can be coupled with other strong security solutions like encryption and Blockchain to ensure data integrity and prevent tampering of data. For example, Blockchainis used extensively in the pharmaceutical sector to track the entire journey of a drug across the supply chain to ensure there is no adulteration in the manufacturing process.
8. What are your future goals for ConnectedWorld Technology Solutions, and how do you intend to continue making an influence on the technology landscape?
My goal at ConnectedWorld is to be a guide for companies who are embarking on AI initiatives. I would like to help companies build useful, safe and responsible solutions using AI. Separately, we are also looking to build innovative solutions as products and make it available for general consumption.
Through my various seminars, blogs, newsletters and other content on social media, I would like to influence innovators to learn AI technology and use it to solve their own problems.
9. Could you tell readers what to expect from your work and why you chose to write under the pen name JeeVa?
I write on various topics relating to AI. One of my books (Wheels of Change) is about a traditional company trying to transform itself in the age of AI. It is written in the form of a story and is available in print and audio forms. It is meant for managers and people new to AI.
I also have a book of short stories (Girlfriend and other short stories) based on AI and other interesting topics.
They are available at amazon.com and pothi.com. The audio book can be requested from our website.
In addition, I blog frequently on technical topics around AI and Cloud Architecture. There’s also a newsletter on trends and topics in AI which people can subscribe to from our company website (https://connectedworldtech.com).
Jee comes from the first letter G in my dad’s name, Gopalakrishnan. Va comes from the first 2 letters of my name, Varad. My dad was a journalist who wrote short stories and articles in English and Tamil. He was a great influence and inspiration for me and exists as the soul in my writing (i.e.Jeeva).
10. Finally, what message or insight would you like to share with the readers of Neo Science Hub, especially those who are interested in using technology to create novel and sustainable solutions?
This is an exciting time to be in the Technology space. AI is advancing rapidly and is creating huge opportunities for people to build innovative and creative solutions.
To all youngsters, I would say embrace AI wholeheartedly. Get trained and acquire as much knowledge as possible in this field.
To those who are concerned about losing their jobs, I would say get past that fear. Electronic spreadsheets did not kill Accountants or Financial Analysts.People will not lose jobs to AI. They will lose jobs to those who know how to use AI. Humans will continue control AI.
