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What Is The Position Of Artificial Intelligence And Specialists In This Field In Iran?

If We Look At The Status Of Artificial Intelligence In Different Countries, We Can See That The Demand For Studying In The Field Of Artificial Intelligence Is Very High Because All Countries And Industries Are In Dire Need Of This Technology And Iran Is No Exception To This Rule.

Organizations and companies produce a lot of data daily that requires heavy processing, so the human resources are not able to process all this data, and the urgent need for artificial intelligence is fully felt.

In general, artificial intelligence has a good position in Iran and other countries and earns a good income for experts in this field.
Potential capacities of artificial intelligence

Today, intelligent software used in various industries such as transportation, medicine (image processing), and data analysis has proven to work well.

However, in some domestic industries such as the automotive industry, artificial intelligence is used sparingly and almost insignificantly, while this technology is best used in large automotive industries such as Tesla, Benz, Hyundai, and similar examples.

In financial fields such as insurance, artificial intelligence is also able to detect fraud.

In the automotive industry, there is the potential to launch smart vehicles equipped with built-in devices that record driver information. The information that is recorded helps insurers Whenever an accident occurs, the insurer intelligently evaluates the accident information and pre-collected information to see if the driver is always careless.

Based on the information obtained, it is possible to pay more or fewer insurance premiums. Another important application of artificial intelligence in the automotive industry is the ability to control the internal components of the vehicle.

Artificial intelligence can warn the driver before anything serious happens, such as low brake fluid or flat tires, before a serious problem arises. Of course, implementing such a plan requires both artificial intelligence and Internet of Things technologies.

Intelligence in production lines is one of the most important needs of the country, which is not specific to the automotive industry. Factories on different production lines can use artificial intelligence to identify, troubleshoot, and optimize to reduce ancillary costs.
What is the place of artificial intelligence in Iran?

Fortunately, the situation of artificial intelligence education in Iran is relatively good and the curricula of Iranian universities are close to international standards, but because foreign universities and educational institutions use up-to-date technologies in education, we are still far from global standards, but in terms of research.

Iran’s artificial intelligence has a good position.

In 2017, Iran was ranked 19th in the world in the field of research and publication of articles in the field of artificial intelligence. Figure 1 shows the position of different countries that have published practical articles in the field of artificial intelligence.

However, in 2019, Iran was among the top 15 countries in the world in the field of artificial intelligence research (Figure below).

A report published by the prestigious Elsevier website shows that Europe intends to conduct extensive research on artificial intelligence and has allocated a large budget for this purpose to reduce its distance from the United States and China.

The United States currently ranks first in the world in terms of the number of articles published, followed by China, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and Spain.

However, many experts and research institutes believe that China will become the first country in the world in the field of basic studies in the field of artificial intelligence by 2030.

In this regard, Iran will be among the top 10 countries in the world in the field of artificial intelligence research.

Why has artificial intelligence been so popular in Iran?

One of the most important reasons for welcoming artificial intelligence is the availability of the required hardware facilities. In Iran, the hardware needed to perform artificial intelligence activities, such as CPUs and powerful graphics cards, are available.

Of course, for advanced AI activities, you need dedicated CPUs and dedicated graphics cards, which are expensive, but for your daily activities by combining two graphics cards (for example, combining two 1070Ti cards in SLI style) is possible to teach models. You have advanced.

Of course, networks such as Amazon are also available to experts outside of Iran, which allow extensive processing, but access to this infrastructure for Iranian users is very limited.

In Iran, efforts have been made to solve this problem, and for example, information technology laboratories in universities such as the University of Tehran are equipped with servers with powerful processors designed for this purpose so that specialists can use them.

Normally, advanced hardware is not required to learn AI topics, but when the level of needs increases and advanced models based on deep neural networks are needed, it is difficult to find the right infrastructure, because deep neural networks can need powerful processing that requires a lot of energy.

If we are to use artificial intelligence in interaction with other technologies such as the Internet of Things that require precision sensors, we can not expect to keep pace with leading companies in this field due to sanctions.

To be more precise, a significant part of the equipment needed is in the sanctions and it is not possible to use them.

Access to some services and meta-based services is not available even if the hardware is provided due to sanctions.

Despite all the restrictions and various obstacles, Iranian universities have still performed well in providing artificial intelligence and training specialists.

The most important public universities offering artificial intelligence in this field are Sharif University, Amirkabir University, Tehran University of Science and Technology, Shahid Beheshti University, Khajeh Nasir University of Technology, Shiraz University, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, and Isfahan University.

In addition to public universities, free universities such as Najafabad University also offer the field of artificial intelligence, and therefore there is no particular problem for artificial intelligence specialists in the country.

In Iran, some universities have a brilliant history in the subdivisions of artificial intelligence.

What is the labor market of artificial intelligence specialists in Iran?

Typically, AI students do not have a particular problem finding a job in their field, provided they have learned the skills needed in the job market. Job postings on job sites show that companies and startups are looking to hire professionals to do projects in areas such as natural language processing, machine vision, machine learning, data analysis, and the like.

To be more precise, by looking at the advertisements on job sites, we see that companies are mainly looking to attract specialists in machine learning, natural language processing, machine vision, data analysis, business intelligence, business intelligence systems deployment specialists, and such jobs.

Of course, a small percentage of these people are attracted to government institutions.

To be more precise, private sector projects outnumber government projects in private AI.

Typically, artificial intelligence professionals outside of Iran are well paid. The highest demand for artificial intelligence professionals is from startups and leading companies in the field of using new technologies such as insurance companies, software manufacturers, and online businesses.

The country’s scientific and research towns are a reliable place to find these companies.

Job sites are also a great place to find companies that want to hire AI professionals. Unfortunately, due to the lack of a reliable source in this field, it is not possible to announce the exact figure that artificial intelligence specialists receive in Iran.

However, depending on the skills and work of an artificial intelligence specialist, they usually receive a salary equivalent to 15 million tomans.

The highest demand for artificial intelligence professionals is from startups and leading companies in the field of using new technologies such as insurance companies, software manufacturers, and online businesses. The country’s scientific and research towns are a reliable place to find these companies.

Job sites are also a great place to find companies that want to hire AI professionals.

Unfortunately, due to the lack of a reliable source in this field, it is not possible to announce the exact figure that artificial intelligence specialists receive in Iran.

However, depending on the skills and work of an artificial intelligence specialist, they usually receive a salary equivalent to 15 million tomans.

The highest demand for artificial intelligence professionals comes from startups and leading companies in the field of using new technologies such as insurance companies, software manufacturers, and online businesses.

The country’s scientific and research towns are a reliable place to find these companies. Job sites are also a great place to find companies that want to hire AI professionals.

Unfortunately, due to the lack of a reliable source in this field, it is not possible to announce the exact figure that artificial intelligence specialists receive in Iran.

However, depending on the skills and work of an artificial intelligence specialist, they usually receive a salary equivalent to 15 million tomans.

Job sites are also a great place to find companies that want to hire AI professionals.

Unfortunately, due to the lack of a reliable source in this field, it is not possible to announce the exact figure that artificial intelligence specialists receive in Iran.

However, depending on the skills and work of an artificial intelligence specialist, they usually receive a salary equivalent to 15 million tomans. Job sites are also a great place to find companies that want to hire AI professionals.

Unfortunately, due to the lack of a reliable source in this field, it is not possible to announce the exact figure that artificial intelligence specialists receive in Iran.

However, depending on the skills and work of an artificial intelligence specialist, they usually receive a salary equivalent to 15 million tomans.

Artificial intelligence and its challenges in Iran

The biggest factor that keeps AI from progressing is research. Due to the economic conditions and the difficulty of obtaining a visa, university professors are hardly able to attend international conferences compared to their counterparts outside of Iran.

Attending these conferences will enable experts to get acquainted with current topics in this field and exchange information. Fortunately, professors and students of artificial intelligence interact well with research institutes such as the Royan Research Institute and the University of Medical Sciences, but this is not enough.

There is still a large gap between the university and industry, which has made it difficult for the university to identify the problems of the industry and take advantage of the potential benefits of artificial intelligence.

Another big problem in this area is how to do research.

Unfortunately, some research in this area is of little use, and when a researcher is to work professionally in this field, he or she needs sufficient funding and international communication.

In most large companies, such as Microsoft, there is a specific unit called R&D in which the people working in this unit have only the task of R&D.

This requires financial resources that some companies and even universities either do not have enough budget for this or are not interested in allocating funds in this field.

Another problem that artificial intelligence professionals face is the lack of constructive interaction with other actors in the field, such as the humanities and medicine.

When it comes to working seriously on a topic such as natural language processing and implementing a powerful model in this area, you need to interact with experts in this field, which is difficult to do.

What skills does an AI student or AI enthusiast need?

Typically, people who are interested in entering the world of artificial intelligence have two distinct paths ahead. The first path is to enter the field of artificial intelligence and pursue academic education, which has its own topics.

 Typically, the courses that AI students study while studying, regardless of seminars, dissertations, and compensatory courses, are as follows:
Main Courses:
  • Neural networks: New methods of problem-solving using artificial intelligence.
  •  Machine learning: reviewing and learning intelligent methods, patterns, and algorithms.
  •  Evolutionary processing: refers to topics that provide different answers to a problem.
  •  Modern calculations: Perform mathematical calculations symbolically.
  •  Fuzzy methods and systems.
  • Statistical identification of patterns.
  •  Artificial intelligence.
Specialized courses:
  •  Distributed artificial intelligence.
  •  Knowledge engineering and expert systems.
  •  Natural Language Processing.
  •  Remote Sensing.
  •  Structural identification of patterns.
  •  Digital signal processing.
  • Speech processing and identification.
  • 3D modeling and interpretation.
  •  Learning Automata.
  •  Special Topics in Computer Engineering.
  • Robotics: The topics of this field are a combination of different sciences such as mechanics, electronics, manufacturing, etc.
Mastering the above topics along with individual learning allows an AI graduate to use their savings in connection with the following applications: 
  • Implementation of advanced automation in the industry, such as the design of intelligent robotic systems and automated quality control.
  • Design of advanced defense systems.
  • Design of security systems related to authentication and automatic detection.
  • The Design of expert systems.
  • Work in computational linguistics such as implementing intelligent translators.
  • Design of software and intelligent algorithms.
  • Computer analysis of images for various applications.
  • Conducting basic research in various fields of artificial intelligence.
Some people for various reasons are not interested in learning AI academically and prefer to learn AI topics freely. 

If we assume that you are a graduate of software engineering and are familiar with the basic topics of computer science, to enter the world of artificial intelligence, you must learn the skills required in this field.

 Here are some important skills:
  • Programming: You will not find almost any AI specialist who has not fully learned at least one or two programming languages. Python, R, Java, CiplusPlus, and MATLAB are the main options in this field.
  • Statistics and Mathematics: Mastering mathematical and statistical concepts is the second most important factor to focus on. If you have a little knowledge about algebra and probability, equations of differential, integral, sigma, and other topics, you should spend a lot of time learning these topics.
  • Mastery of big data technologies: Big data are embedded in the world of artificial intelligence and machine learning. In any field of artificial intelligence, you enter you must be able to work with big data. So it is better to focus on learning technologies such as Spark, Kafka, Apache Spark, Hadoop, Mongodibi, and related technologies.
  • Algorithms and Frameworks: In some areas, such as natural language processing, a large part of your work is with unstructured data. That’s why you need to know what unstructured data is, how it is classified, how it is processed, and how it should be used. Tensorflow, PyTorch, and Theano are good learning options.
  • Natural language processing: Natural language processing has its own world. A natural language processor seeks to implement a language that can be understood and shared between humans and computers. So you have to invest in learning Gensim, NLTK, and techniques like word2vec.
  • Building Databases and Databases: To implement powerful dialogs, fetch information from databases, and understand the information stored within databases, you should study the topics of databases and data structures. SQL in particular is the language of many AI-related activities.

Uses and abuses of artificial intelligence

One of the biggest concerns about artificial intelligence is how to use it. Unfortunately, when a new technology is introduced to the market, some companies seek to exploit it. For example, one of the most important criticisms in this area is the pricing method based on smart technologies, especially concerning online services.

To clarify this issue, think of Internet taxis. Suppose a major sporting event such as football is scheduled to take place in a city or region.

In this case, the demand for Internet taxis will increase and the number of cars will decrease.

Designers can design intelligent algorithms that, whenever an important event is taking place and the demand for online taxis is high, raises prices to encourage more drivers to get to that part of the city and displace passengers.

On the surface, everything seems to be as expected by all three groups (drivers, passengers, and service companies), while the company makes the main profit because it raises prices over time and makes more profit. A privacy breach is the biggest challenge of advancing intelligent algorithms.

Today, most people use mapping services to facilitate urban and suburban travel. This information is stored on servers owned by the service provider.

The simplest thing that can be done to invade people’s privacy is to give information to advertising companies so that they can constantly attack people.

To solve this problem, institutions have been established in some countries to monitor the performance of companies and ensure that companies do not invade the privacy of individuals.