Why Armenia should rapidly build artificial intelligence to gain a competitive advantage: Interview with Hovhannes Avoyan, PicsArt Co-Founder and CEO

AI (Artificial Intelligence) is a buzzword these days. Everyone who is involved in technology talks about it. Today, we are speaking with the co-founder and CEO of PicsArt, Hovhannes Avoyan. PicsArt is a leading photo editor, collage maker and drawing app with a social network of more than 300 million users. Mr. Avoyan is an entrepreneur, who created several successful software companies before PicsArt. He has lectured and has been heavily involved with AI since the ’90s. In our interview, Mr. Avoyan will cover what  AI is about, the practical implications of it and its importance, how it’s changing the technology landscape and why Armenian entrepreneurs and government officials are uniquely positioned to benefit from it.

Mr Avoyan, could you please explain what Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning is?

For many years, AI had been considered a “dead science,” but recently we have seen a renaissance that will hugely impact our lives and businesses. Over  the last five years, almost $1 billion has been invested in startups in this field and it continues to accelerate. But most people, especially those who don’t have a technical background, are getting confused about what AI actually is. Artificial Intelligence is the general concept of machines being able to carry out tasks that might otherwise be performed by humans, i.e., “intelligently.”  “Machine learning”  is a subset of  AI, that enables computers  to learn through data and patterns without being explicitly programmed. There are many areas of AI, but ML is becoming one of the most important ones, due to the proliferation of big data and advances in new computing capacities.

What are the practical applications of Machine Learning?

The practical applications of ML are very broadly defined and range from learning a user’s behavior pattern to image processing, to online advertising, cybersecurity, to financial risk analysis or a medical diagnosis, and many more. In order to give a complete introduction to the modern field of ML, it's important to mention an approach called "neutral networking" that has recently gained popularity.  This is a system that is patterned off of the operation of neurons in the human brain. A neural network usually involves a large number of processors operating in parallel and arranged in tiers.

How can users interact with AI and “feel” that AI is already here?

Let me give an example. In 2015, Facebook users sent on average 31.25 million messages and viewed 2.77 million videos every minute. Facebook obviously uses the valuable data it has to develop its AI application, e.g. face recognition: In a candid photo from a night club, Facebook can identify 97% of the people if they have a profile with pictures. Through targeted advertising, FB has the ability to choose which advertisements are shown to which users. Whether Facebook, Google, Amazon (Alexa), Apple (Siri) users want it or not, they already interact  with AI.  PicsArt collects over one billion events per day and our users upload almost 100M images per month. Through AI approaches, we use this data to better learn about our users’ preferences and deliver them their best experience of our product.

We already understand that our future would be impossible without AI. Nevertheless, there is a lot of  bias and misconceptions surrounding AI; for example, could AI take over our jobs?  

Yes and no. According to research,  around  350 million production or warehouse employees will lose work to robots. This is an area where artificial intelligence can easily replace a person, because it works more effectively and cheaply. As an  example, 30 thousand robots are already working in Amazon's warehouses.

When machines take over some functions of humans, AI also creates demand for new kinds of jobs. Some experts compare AI with the invention of electricity. In the same way electricity has changed almost every industry, boosted productivity and intervenes in every aspect of our lives, becoming the main driving force for the 2nd industrial revolution, AI will change  industries and our lives and introduce the era of the 4th revolution. AI  can be applied in almost every area and can bring a revolutionary increase in the productivity and quality of life. Countries and businesses who quickly build competence in AI may gain a significant competitive advantage.   

Could you please explain how Armenia’s economy can benefit from AI?

Armenia should take advantage of its traditional strength in science and math  and start building  competence in  AI and ML rapidly. Government and businesses should take it very seriously and have a plan for implementing AI in many areas such as healthcare, banking and finance, transportation, manufacturing, security, telecom, etc. The timing is right and the window of opportunity will not last long. This is the only option for the country to effectively compete with the rest of the world.

There are a number of successful AI projects which can be used or developed in Armenia. For example, there are more trading robots in stock exchanges than human traders. AI applications are being rapidly scaled in the insurance and health industries where big data analysis and data mining are required. Many companies test personal assistant technologies based on AI, which are capable of communicating with customers as well as real operators do.

The driverless cars industry is actively developing AI. Uber is already testing self-driving cars in Pittsburgh. Those cars will replace taxi drivers by 2020. Unfortunately, the 5 million people in the U.S.  who make their living driving taxis, buses, vans and trucks will lose their jobs. The same inevitability will happen with the rest of the world. But even more jobs will be created thanks to AI. People just have to learn new professions that will be in demand that robots can’t do.

For Armenia, this is a unique chance to develop the economy through technology and the application of AI, particularly by supporting the development of  schools and special education programs. We can encourage the growth and development of tech companies in the country that can become a global presence  and build a positive reputation for the country. Through these actions, Armenia has the potential to  become a strong global player in AI!  

Companies like PicsArt have already contributed to this development. We’re doing intensive R&D in AI, organized a series of AI trainings, and collaborating with the universities to educate more AI specialists. Recently, we conducted an impressive AI hackathon with  Microsoft. Our amazing engineers and designers built several AI products in 24 hours. PicsArt could become a driving force in bringing these new skills to Armenia.

You can download the free PicsArt photo editor for iOS, Android, and Windows phones.