AI cannot replace core engineering disciplines: IIT Mandi Director

IIT-Mandi Director said that the engineering college curriculum need not be revamped with the advent of AI because the new technologies cannot do research.

Amid an ongoing discussion about how education and learning will have to be reimagined in the wake of the AI boom, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Mandi Director Laxmidhar Behera said that the engineering college curriculum need not be revamped with the advent of AI because the new technologies cannot do research.

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.

"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 other 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.

"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 added.

“AI can probably give a finishing touch, you know, making things much better, this and that. But 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,” IIT Mandi Director 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.