AI turns speaker into friend

When service-oriented speakers encounters AI, or artificial intelligence, then technology is no longer a cold word to human beings, in that the AI speaker can act like a friend to help us express our love or gratefulness to our loved ones.

Pebble, an accompanying speaker launched by Rokid Co Ltd, an artificial intelligence company based in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, helped a deaf girl Tuesday in Beijing express her gratefulness to her special education teacher who has raised her for 25 years.

When Pebble said "Ms Ma, thank you for bringing me the whole world", both the girl, Hu Xueqi, and her teacher, Ma Shufang burst out crying.

Apart from serving as a megaphone, using voice recognition technology, the speaker can wake people up in the morning, read the first news of the day, and tell bedtime stories to children － just like a family member.

In order to make Pebble act more like part of a family, its research and development team spent great amount of time and money on limiting its wake-up word into two words, which is the first and only one in China.

"Transforming the wake-up word from four words into two words is very tough, because the information provided for voice recognition is so limited and it requires much more precise algorithm. We spent over 2 years realizing this goal, because waking up the speaker with two words gives you a feeling of calling a friend of yours or your family member," said Misa Zhu, founder and chief executive officer of Rokid.

Apart from the lab in Beijing, in 2016, Rokid launched its research lab in San Francisco, California, focusing on the research and development on new products and new technologies.

The new product possesses an six-microphone-array speech recognition technology, which enables the speaker to recognize ten different family members. Combining AI, it can offer personalized services according to the preferences of each family member. Besides, it supports far-field identification and multi-noise identification. Consumers can call Pebble in the bedroom from kitchen.

"Multi-noise identification and far-field identification are essential for an AI speaker. A good AI speaker should enable users to wake it up in a distance in your house with your washing machine on," said Xiang Yang, an AI expert at the China Center for Information Industry Development.

"Information technology is developing at such a rapid pace that it is to some extent leaving many people behind. Those aged, as well as disabled people, had technological barriers between others. Now, with the help of AI, robots can serve as a companion for the elderly. It can also aid the disabled to 'see' the world and feel the world. Actually, AI is leaving nobody behind," said Zhu.

Ma Si contributed to the story.