Information Technologies and Communications Authority hosted the "Artificial Intelligence Turkey Conference." In his opening speech at the program, President Dr. Ömer Fatih Sayan emphasized that recent developments in the field of artificial intelligence have reached unimaginable dimensions.
The "Artificial Intelligence Turkey Conference," held at the Information Technologies and Communications Authority Central Campus, was attended by BTK President Dr. Ömer Fatih Sayan, Institution Deputy Presidents, Board Members, as well as figures such as Proda Bilişim General Manager İlhan Kılıç, Marmara University Faculty Member Prof. Dr. Ercan Öztemel, Ayonix CEO Dr. Sadi Vural, Gebze Technical University Faculty Member Prof. Dr. Yusuf Sinan Akgül, and Istanbul Şehir University Faculty Member Assoc. Prof. Dr. Şadi Evren Şeker.
Expressing that artificial intelligence has reached a stage that challenges the limits of human intellect with its developments in recent years, President Dr. Ömer Fatih Sayan gave the following example: “Artificial intelligence, which has begun to be used in every field from medicine to transportation, from call center services to communication technologies, is fundamentally the ability of computers or robots to respond to complex problems like humans. The development of this topic, which is followed with curiosity and interest by professionals in many sectors, dates back many years. If we go back to the early periods when studies on artificial intelligence and computers began, we witness a process that started with the electricity-free automaton that performed the four operations by German mathematician and philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in the 17th century.”
Stating that the article published by British mathematician Alan Turing in 1950 was a milestone in this sense, Sayan said, “Although we say how much we have progressed in artificial intelligence in recent years, it would not be wrong to say that we have only recently found answers to the question in the first sentence of Alan Turing's article, which is considered the beginning of artificial intelligence studies: 'I propose to consider the question, Can machines think?' From machines being able to think, this process has evolved to learning everything much faster, and artificial intelligence techniques have begun to be used in almost every sector. The world has now entered a race to create value with concepts and applications of big data, blockchain, and artificial intelligence.”
Listing the areas where artificial intelligence is used as “Finance, meteorology, defense industry and military services, health, insurance companies, computer games, banking and customer recognition systems, aviation, transportation,” Sayan noted that this topic has an effect on people full of fluctuations between hope and fear, and explained it with the Facebook scandal that has not left the agenda recently: “A major scandal emerged with the 'regret confession' of Cambridge Analytica's former employee Christopher Wylie and the news from the British newspaper The Guardian. Using artificial intelligence-based learning algorithms, Cambridge Analytica was able to measure information such as skin color, sexual orientation, and which party they would vote for with 85% accuracy based on just 68 likes of any Facebook user. Moreover, it revealed that they could define the behavioral characteristics of every Facebook subscriber better than their friend with 70 likes, better than their family with 150 likes, better than their spouse with 300 likes, and even better than themselves with a bit more. They did this just with the 'Like' button! With these learning algorithms that can recognize you with just 68 clicks, it is possible to produce scientific studies that enable earlier discovery of diseases and treatments, as well as assistive technologies that make life easier for disabled individuals tailored to each person.”
Artificial Intelligence Has Now Become a Main Branch of Science
Emphasizing that artificial intelligence is again a technology surrendered to human's limited will, Sayan said, “As a country, we have also started to develop products that will make significant contributions to our development and economy. We continue to develop products with high scientific and economic value in many areas from scientific studies to transportation; from medicine to military technologies. With the initiative and development process that our country started in the 2000s, we have leaped forward in physical transportation possibilities by building bridges, highways, power plants. On the other hand, we are conducting special studies to protect our citizens by elevating the internet infrastructure above international standards in a similar way and creating communication and transportation conveniences in the virtual environment.”
Underlining that exemplary works are being done on behalf of Turkey with the conducted studies, Sayan said, “The use of artificial intelligence in our daily lives in so many different sectors; as a result of artificial intelligence studies gaining speed with the anxieties and motivations of the economic order, we can say that artificial intelligence has now become a main branch of science. Artificial Intelligence is very broad and divided into sub-branches of science. Just as physics is divided into branches like Mechanics Physics, Electricity Physics, Thermodynamics, Optics, or how we cannot say 'I will learn physics, I have become an expert in physics,' we must think the same for Artificial Intelligence. Artificial intelligence has many starting points that vary according to each person who wants to conduct research or work in this field.”
Expressing that the upper branch of this field must first be determined to conduct a successful study on artificial intelligence, Sayan said that artificial intelligence is a very comprehensive topic and added: “Artificial Intelligence has become such a broad field of science that the developing branches under it have now begun to differentiate within themselves. First, you need to decide in which area you want to work and produce a product. Not only that, you also need to determine your methods. For example; after determining your project or working area according to your needs in areas like image, sound, or natural language processing, you need to determine your methods as well.”
July 15 is an Example of "Swarm Intelligence"
Providing information about “Swarm Intelligence,” which refers to systems that move in flocks and perform the tasks given to them together with other autonomous structures in their swarm or cluster, Sayan explained with the following example: “ Examples are usually given from the animal kingdom, but this brought to my mind another event we experienced very recently. In the July 15 coup attempt, our nation came together upon the instruction of our President and organized so well against the terrorists' ruthless aggression that they stood against tanks and planes with bare hands, stones, and sticks. Perhaps no single individual had power of impact alone, but we organized so instantly that our nation succeeded in reaching the result.”
Stating that “We will achieve great gains for our country in the local and national mobilization under the leadership of our President with this conference,” Sayan also drew attention to the importance of being local and national. Sayan said, “Because what is meant by 'local and national' is the ability to establish the innovation network I mentioned earlier. In this context, as the Information Technologies and Communications Authority, in addition to our regulatory duties in the sector, we gain a two-winged competence with our constructive services and infrastructures that will strengthen the hand of the telecommunications and postal sector in international competition, and our operational capabilities. We continue our investments in supervision, infrastructure, and technology so that our communication sector operators can use their commercial capabilities at the highest level within the framework of law,” providing information about the studies conducted by BTK.
Data is Today's Oil
President Sayan said that oil has changed today. Reminding that all formations were determined according to oil, President Sayan said, “Today's oil is data. As long as we have data, we are strong. The spirit of existence will also be through our data. Those who conduct their business with this data will win. Therefore, protect your data. Work to keep your data within country borders.”
Stating that the announcement of smart systems to be used for the detection of online communication devices that are illegally traded and put into use with this illegal trade, for the protection of the rights of businesses continuing their commercial life legally in the communication sector, will be made soon, Sayan said, “Additionally, we have developed smart threat detection systems related to the security of our country's internet infrastructure and traffic entirely with our institution's human resources and our own programming language. And by providing coordination with public institutions and private individuals with machine learning algorithms in the detection and neutralization of the said threats, we serve our country's digital defense.”
Artificial Intelligence is a Wave That Will Sweep Away Stationary Nations
Reminding that artificial intelligence is one of the biggest waves that will sweep ahead the nations that stand still, Sayan said, “Thinking that this wave will not reach us or that it has weakened would be a great mistake. This wave is not weakening but getting stronger. We need to learn to surf this wave by coping with it, that is, synchronize our technology to adapt to this wave and run to not stand still. After all, technology is not an element that develops or evolves by itself. We need to do this, we need to be pioneers. To achieve this, our education system must be based on science and technology, we need to support our schools and universities in an horizon-opening way with public and private sector opportunities. In addition, we need to make lifelong learning a life principle with events like the artificial intelligence conference we are organizing in different fields and currently conducting.” He concluded his speech with these words.
Marmara University Faculty Member Prof. Dr. Ercan Öztemel made a presentation titled “From Yesterday to Today, From Today to Yesterday.” Öztemel said, “The world is changing very fast. Hardware is changing accordingly. As we move from hand-operated machines to digitals, the need for information increases. Over time, the machine gave way to information, and industrial society gave way to digital society.”
Dr. Sadi Vural, who started working there after completing his master's degree in Japan and founded Ayonix company working on face recognition systems, made a presentation on their studies.
At the end of the program where presentations on artificial intelligence were made to the participants throughout the day, gifts were distributed to students through a raffle.