Core engineering disciplines cannot be replaced by AI, curriculum revamp not needed: IIT-Mandi head

New Delhi: Artificial Intelligence (AI) is not at a stage where it can really educate students and core engineering discipline cannot be replaced by it, according to Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Mandi Director Laxmidhar Behera.

The curriculum in the engineering colleges need not be revamped with the advent of AI because the new technologies cannot do research, he added.

"I don't think as of now Artificial Intelligence (AI) or associated tools has attained a stage where it can really educate our students in terms of scientific concepts as well as scientific possibilities. I don't think AI has enough of that now, because we ourselves don't understand our own cognitive processes.

"For example, we do not have an answer about why one person is able to understand math and why another person doesn't. So how can we create a system when we very poorly understand our own cognitive processes?," Behera told PTI in an interview.

The director who is known for his contribution to areas such as intelligent systems and control, vision-based robotics, warehouse automation and brain-computer interface, said "ChatGPT is a good innovation but it is as dumb as possible".

"It doesn't understand the concept. It just gathers the information from voluminous data," he said.

Amid an on ongoing debate about how education and teaching and learning will have to be reimagined in the wake of the AI boom, Behera said none of the AI systems are innately cognitive, rather they depend on their huge architecture and huge database to make things possible.

"No, we do not have to change our curriculum completely because that will not be prudent on our part. Even with AI, we will still need good engineers who have good concepts. I don't think AI would do all these things. Without any concepts of structural engineering, how can engineers build a bridge or how they can build a 100-storied apartment that is earthquake-resistant?

"AI can probably give a finishing touch, you know, making things much better, this and that. However, the core engineering discipline cannot be replaced by AI or AI technology. So this is a hype. I cannot tell you how long this will continue, but I am pretty sure every phase has its own end," he said.

Talking about expansion plans for IIT Mandi, Behera said the institute plans to increase the faculty strength to over 300 and student strength to over 5,000 in the next five years.

"With the infrastructure firmly in place, the institute plans to increase the faculty strength to over 300 and student strength to over 5,000 in the next five years. Along with this, the institute plans to build a hostel for students from Economically Weaker Sections (EWS), new hostel blocks for 1,500 students, an academic block, and a lecture hall complex in the near future with the financial support of the Ministry of Education through a HEFA loan of Rs 333 crores.

"In the past year, IIT-Mandi has started four new BTech and BS programmes in Material Science and Engineering; General Engineering; Microelectronics and VLSI; Mathematics and Computing and Chemical Sciences. We have also started joint degree programmes with other national institutes," he said.