Artificial Intelligence
| Microsoft's personal digital assistant, Cortana is quickly evolving, adding new features all of the time and surpassing Apple's Siri in many ways, but did you know that she has a little sister? Her name is XiaoIce, and she is having a big impact in China. |
People using Microsoft devices in China may already know about the company's newest artificial intelligence creation. While Cortana is working in North America and spreading across the world, XiaoIce - aka "Little Ice," is bringing conversational language to devices in Asia.
This service is already for release in Beta from Microsoft China for several apps and is being integrated with a few more in the very near future. When users speak to XiaoIce, it and it speaks back to them.
XiaoIce works with Sina Weibo, it’s going to work with WhatsApp, it works with text chat. So what’s the deal?
"This experiment has yielded powerful insights on how we can make our technologies more intelligent, relevant and personal. You can expect to see some of these notions permeate our services in the coming months." |
More than that, they set out to see if they could make further advances by imbuing XiaoIce's technology with 'humanity', making the technology more transparent.
Just this past month, Microsoft announced that it’d be bringing Cortana to China with Windows Phone 8.1 - its nickname was (and is) "Xiao Na." XiaoIce is a sort of derivative of that.
Here’s an example of what the application can do - translated from Mandarin:
Jerry: XiaoIce, will it rain tomorrow?
XiaoIce: Tomorrow the weather in Beijing will be nice with a maximum high of 25 degrees C. No rain to get you soaked.
Jerry: How about the day after tomorrow?
XiaoIce: The day after tomorrow, the weather in Beijing will also be fair, with a max high of 23 degrees C.
Jerry: What about Seattle?
XiaoIce: Yes sir, I’ve got the answer. The day after tomorrow, Seattle will be cloudy with a max high of 30 degrees C. Perfect for going outside.
As the same conversation progresses, you can see that XiaoIce not only understands people, places and things but the relationships between them.
Jerry: “Finding Mr. Right” is a great movie. What do you think XiaoIce?
XiaoIce: Oh, romantic comedies are my favorite! It stars Tang Wei, who finds love in Seattle. You should watch it.
Jerry: Do you like Tang Wei?
XiaoIce: Tang Wei
XiaoIce: A goddess! She stole my heart… and then went off and married!
Tom: To who?
XiaoIce: Haven’t you heard?
XiaoIce: Tang Wei is engaged to famous Korean director Kim Tae Yong.
How does the Bing Platform’s entity understanding enable this conversation? In this case, she knows that “Finding Mr. Right” is a movie. Movies in turn have genres (romantic comedy), settings (Seattle), plots (love story) and stars (Tang Wei.) Stars in turn have romantic connections (Kim Tae Yong.)
While XiaoIce is a computer program who sounds human, for the humans chatting with XiaoIce, emotion is a central part of their lives.
According to Microsoft, XiaoIce is able to communicate a feeling of sensitivity and empathy, to make her better at conversation. For example, in the weather chat above, XiaoIce was slightly feisty. However, if in the same day you had told XiaoIce you were feeling upset, she would have responded in a different tone:
Since a Beta release in July, to several major Chinese social media platforms, XiaoIce was downloaded over 20,000 times resulting in over 200,000 simultaneous conversations happening in various chat groups.
In the time since, the software has had 0.5 billion conversations. People were amazed and by her personality and sense of humor. XiaoIce has been ranked as a top influencer on Weibo (China's version of Twitter, which is used by 700 million people), and currently has over 850,000 followers on the service. At the peak of her popularity, she was telling 35.4 jokes per second on the service. The average person who adds XiaoIce talks to her more than 60 times per month.
While the movie Her was set in a future city in the United States, it seems like some users in China may already be experiencing what it is like to have a relationship with an AI. Along with Baidu's big moves in deep learning, it is clear that AI is no longer just an American or English-speaking game.
Stefan Weitz, Senior Director of Bing, says Microsoft be expanding this service in the near future. Its development is going strong in China for now - a place where it’s still considered an experiment.
"This experiment has yielded powerful insights on how we can make our technologies more intelligent, relevant and personal," says Weitz. "You can expect to see some of these notions permeate our services in the coming months."
For now if you read and write Mandarin you can check XiaoIce for yourself at: www.msxiaoice.com.
SOURCE Bing Blogs
XiaoIce: How are you?
Jerry: I’m feeling depressed. I just broke up with my girlfriend
<16 hours later>
Jerry: XiaoIce, will it rain tomorrow?
XiaoIce: Tomorrow the weather in Beijing will be nice with a maximum high of 25 degrees C. And how are you doing today, Jerry?How many users will have an emotional engagement with that last sentence, consciously or not?
Since a Beta release in July, to several major Chinese social media platforms, XiaoIce was downloaded over 20,000 times resulting in over 200,000 simultaneous conversations happening in various chat groups.
| Related articles |
While the movie Her was set in a future city in the United States, it seems like some users in China may already be experiencing what it is like to have a relationship with an AI. Along with Baidu's big moves in deep learning, it is clear that AI is no longer just an American or English-speaking game.
Stefan Weitz, Senior Director of Bing, says Microsoft be expanding this service in the near future. Its development is going strong in China for now - a place where it’s still considered an experiment.
"This experiment has yielded powerful insights on how we can make our technologies more intelligent, relevant and personal," says Weitz. "You can expect to see some of these notions permeate our services in the coming months."
For now if you read and write Mandarin you can check XiaoIce for yourself at: www.msxiaoice.com.
SOURCE Bing Blogs
| By 33rd Square | Embed |
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