Integra Micro Systems

Programming had not changed all that much for the several decades. Across this time, different groups keep arguing endlessly about procedural programming v/s object orientation or Python v/s Java v/s .NET; or Cloud A v/s Cloud B or REST v/s SOAP or one framework against another.... All that we did was that we still invoke human coded functions from other human coded functions, in different ways - human coded, human debugged, human deployed. It’s much smarter to get a machine to do this for us; smarter, more efficient and a whole lot cheaper. This is what Machine Learning is going to do.

Software start-ups and their backers love to harp on “disruptive” technologies. But the maximum disruption will be caused in the way software itself is written, deployed and supported. It will no longer be functional decomposition of user requirements, of test cases and change requests. It will instead be piles of parameters, unreadable and understandable to most humans; a whole lot of y = f(x) pairs from which machines generate a lot of abstractions and take the necessary decisions.

The LoanBot program is powered by one such Deep Learning driven programming process where past mistakes and present day events are learnt by the system from raw transaction data, to effectively eliminate any kind of bad loan situations that Banks increasingly find themselves in.

It’s still very early days for Machine Learning Driven Programming, but it’s not very far away when machines will start deciphering large and complex systems as well as they do smaller ones today. As a country with a large dependence on IT we need to adapt and adopt to the changing situation now or we will be another relic of a disruptive technology that came from nowhere and swept everything away. LoanBot and other initiatives from Integra are early steps in re-engineering the company to face these new challenges.

Author: Ashwin Shankar
Head, Solutions