Taiwan must institutionalize collaboration between universities and businesses to upgrade its industries with the latest research results in a bid to join the global trend in combining artificial intelligence, big data and the Internet of Things to realize Industry 4.0, or the fourth industrial revolution, experts said.
National Taiwan University electrical engineering professor Luo Ren-chuan (羅仁權) said that artificial intelligence can enable machines to “learn and develop cognitive abilities, which can simulate human thought and brain activities,” but added that artificial intelligence still cannot think independently and react to random situations.
Luo, who is also the director of the university’s International Center of Excellence in Intelligent Robotics and Automation Research and an adviser to the Executive Yuan’s productivity 4.0 plan, said that world is moving toward Industry 4.0 and Taiwan has to catch up with the trend.
The nation is lagging in terms of industrial applications of artificial intelligence and research has been predominantly conducted by academic institutions, while in many nations businesses invest resources into artificial intelligence research so that they can develop patents and understand the latest developments in the industry while manufacturing products in a commercial scale, Luo said.
“Taiwan can opt for a ‘high-quality, low-quantity’ strategy to achieve ‘smart factory’ objectives, including customization, zero inventory and high added value,” he said.
“The first step for the government is to sort through and organize academic research results and establish a partnership between universities and businesses,” Luo added.
National Taipei University of Technology automation technology professor Lin Hsien-i (林顯易) said that human-like robots would be highly integrated devices and are the ultimate goal of artificial intelligence research, adding that it is scientists’ goal to make robots as intelligent as humans.
A robot’s functioning is built on three stages — sensing, decisionmaking and execution — and artificial intelligence is about the decisionmaking process, Lin said.
Advanced algorithms of the kind that allow Google’s AlphaGo to choose board game strategies can have other applications, such as route planning and vehicular software development, Lin said.
National Taiwan University of Technology and Science mechanical engineering professor Lin Chyi-yeu (林其禹) said AlphaGo has the ability to calculate a huge amount of data to simulate professional go players and even develop new strategies and tactics, which suggests that the software has better decisionmaking capability than its predecessors.
“Robots with artificial intelligence can replace humans in the production line and might be used as ‘smart doctors’ that can diagnose and treat minor diseases with abilities comparable to human doctors,” Lin Chi-yeu said.
Luo said medical robots, which could communicate with human doctors via the Internet, could be sent to poor nations or war zones to compensate for medical staff shortages.
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