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By Prof. Elsayed Hemayed
Director of the Communications and Information Engineering Program
University of Science and Technology - Zewail City

The world is living these days with the emergence of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) revolution as an extension of the fourth industrial revolution, which means the extensive use of technology and advanced mechanization in manufacturing processes and robots to transform into what is called the smart factory. What is the AI revolution? What is its importance? and how do we keep pace with this revolution and have a role in its leadership? First of all, AI can be defined as the ability of the  machine to simulate the human mind and its way of working, such as its ability to think, discover and benefit from previous experiences, and even equipe the robot with a high intelligence that sometimes surpasses the intelligence of man.

AI is now more advanced and closer to our daily life, and an example of that is the virtual assistant Siri of Apple or Alexa, which recognizes voices and responds to instructions and dialogue with the person speaking. Also, the facial recognition feature in smartphones and social media is precisely the same as what any human would do, as well as self-driving cars. As for those who use e-shopping sites, they certainly notice that the site offers him suggestions very close to what he is looking for, as the site using AI can predict what the customer wants by tracking his choices. The Google Maps application, which guides the user on the best ways to get to the place he wants. From these examples it becomes clear the importance of AI in our daily life, and in the service of humanity in many areas.

In the field of education, AI can be used to provide a flexible educational system according to the ability and skill of the student and help the teacher in determining the student’s level, increasing their success rate and correcting answers, which saves time and effort and improves the educational process. In the field of health, AI can be used in early diagnosis of diseases and epidemics, in improving medical care and analyzing the results of examinations quickly and more accurately. Using AI, researchers are studying the possibility of producing small-sized robots to reach places of disease in the human body to provide more accurate diagnosis as well as delivery of medicine to the affected place to increase its effectiveness and reduce side effects. In the field of security, AI can monitor borders, ports and vital places to identify suspects and suspicious behavior of people. AI can as well monitor streets, public places and facilities. It can monitor and track cars on the roads, monitor road conditions and control signals to facilitate traffic and monitor the driver inside the vehicle and his attention to avoid accidents if possible.

AI depends in its entirety on machine learning techniques, and it is intended to teach the computer a skill of human skills such as recognizing voices, faces and situations, and interacting with the others through many and repeated examples so that the computer can learn this skill and implement it with high accuracy. A computer with high speeds and large memory are now available in most countries of the world. As for the examples required to complete the machine learning process, they can be obtained from books, videos and images widely

available on the Internet or collecting such examples and data from the surrounding environment. As for machine learning techniques, most of these technologies are open source and available for use on the Internet. From the above, it becomes clear to us the reason for the rapid spread of artificial intelligence applications, whereby any organization or even a group of individuals with an application idea using AI can implement and market the application. It does not require unknown technology or unavailable specialized devices. It's just an idea and understanding of machine learning techniques, a fast computer, data and examples to complete the learning process.

The AI revolution can be kept up with, benefited from, and even be in its forefront through four main directions.

First: Preparing skilled graduates in the field of computer engineering and information technology familiar with machine learning techniques and principles and the various AI applications. To succeed in this direction, universities, especially colleges of computers and engineering, need to amend their curricula to equip and train their graduates in AI technology. In this field, the University of Science and Technology in Zewail City is one of the first universities in Egypt to teach machine learning techniques, deep learning, various principles and applications of artificial intelligence (data analysis - text analysis - voice recognition - image recognition) for undergraduate students.

Second: Providing fast computer devices, as well as data and examples to teach the machine. This direction requires the cooperation of the government and the private sector to provide such devices as well as to issue legislation to facilitate data circulation and use in the fields of AI while preserving the privacy of individuals and bodies.

Third: Developing scientific research in the field of AI and machine learning in order to discover new methods and technologies that improve the efficiency of AI and employ it for other uses that benefit humanity. In this field, the University of Science and Technology in Zewail City took the lead in teaching a master's program in the field of artificial intelligence to advance scientific research in this field and discover new patterns of artificial intelligence.

Fourth: Encouraging the establishment of new companies in the field of AI and the development of organizations, companies and factories to use AI techniques to improve production or the production process or provide new services. This will enable the companies to market their products and compete at the international level, and hence increase the national income through AI techniques.