From ICT to AI: The Next Frontier in Technology - Exploring the Transition and its Implications

ICT (Information and Communication Technology) is the foundation of economy and a driving force of social changes in the 21st Century, from Internet to teleworking, e-banking, e-commerce, virtual communities, Air Traffic Control (ATC), defense, planet Earth health surveillance. AI (Artificial Intelligence) studies systems capable of simulating human reasoning, decisions and creativity in the framework of Information Technology, and is deeply intertwined to the evolution of ICT, symbolized by the well-known Moore’s Law. This presentation explores the co-evolution of ICT and AI, towards “advancing technology for the benefit of humanity”, as the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the world’s largest professional organization) motto states. Starting with the role of mathematics, signal processing, computer science in ICT and neurobiology and neurophysiology for AI systems, the main contributions and historical aspects of both disciplines are outlined. Radar systems and some applications like adaptive phased arrays, multitarget, multiradar tracking systems for Air Traffic Control (ATC) and defense, microwave remote sensing (e.g., Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) Interferometry) and environmental monitoring, are one of the outstanding successes of ICT, evolving to multi-domain systems with tensor-based approaches. On the other hand, the branches of AI -Expert systems, machine learning, deep learning, natural language processing, reinforcement learning and deep reinforcement learning – are analyzed within the many civilian, industrial and defense&military applications, intercepting the Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 UN Agenda. Focus is also given to potential risks to mitigate, identifying the impacts and economic implications of AI, together with ethical considerations and points of criticism, like the difficulty of reasoning at the counterfactual level, or the fact that learnability cannot be proved nor refused in particular scenarios, or even environmental issues related to the huge amount of data and computing power needed by AI systems. The coexistence of ICT and AI will need collaboration between educators, policy makers and technologists to harness AI effectively, with a “safe AI design” capable of solving problems using common sense, altruism and other human values. The future of ICT and AI requires new competences, and the new scenarios – health care, weather forecasting, cognitive radars, education, economics – imply “to accept and to reject the past with a kind of balance that takes considerable skill” (Richard P. Feynman), allowing humanity to reach the IEEE motto, looking for “new lands”. The presentation is developed according to the following topics: • When All Started in theory (James Clerk Maxwell) and in practice (Guglielmo Marconi) • Role of Math and STEM • ICT Glorious Contributions, Geniuses (Fourier, Gauss, Bayes, Kalman) and Crowd of Unsung Heroes • ICT Way Ahead • Rise of AI, Geniuses (Turing, Wiener), Nobel Prize winners (Hopfield, Hinton) and Unsung Heroes • What AI Offers to Society • Risks to Mitigate • Looking for “New Lands” • References and Sitography