Alibaba Already Has a Voice Assistant Way Better Than Google's (technologyreview.com) 109
Like Google's Duplex, Chinese internet giant Alibaba has its own humanlike voice assistant capable of making restaurant reservations and salon appointments. But unlike Google, which has rolled out the feature to select audience, Alibaba's offering already has a wider reach. And it's smart, too. From a report: On December 2 at the 2018 Neural Information Processing Systems conference, one of the largest annual gatherings for AI research, Alibaba demoed the AI customer service agent for its logistics company Cainiao. Jin Rong, the dean of Alibaba's Machine Intelligence and Technology Lab, said the agent is already servicing millions of customer requests a day. The pre-recorded demo call involved the agent asking a customer where he wanted his package delivered. In the back-and-forth exchange, the agent successfully navigated several conversational elements that demonstrated the breadth of its natural-language capabilities.
Take this exchange at the beginning of the call, translated from Mandarin: Agent: Hello, I am Cainiao's voice assistant. I am --
Customer: Hello.
A: Yes, hi, you have package scheduled for morning delivery to 588 Culture West Road. Is it convenient for you to receive?
C: Who are you?
A: I am Cainiao's voice assistant. I'd like to confirm your morning delivery to 588 Culture West Road. Does that work for you?
C: I'm not home in the morning.
A: Then do you have another address that you'd like to use?
Within 30 seconds, the agent has smoothly handled three common, and tricky, conversational ingredients: interruption, nonlinear conversation, and implicit intent. Interruption is self-explanatory: the agent can respond to the customer's interruption and continue relaying relevant information without starting over or skipping a beat.
Take this exchange at the beginning of the call, translated from Mandarin: Agent: Hello, I am Cainiao's voice assistant. I am --
Customer: Hello.
A: Yes, hi, you have package scheduled for morning delivery to 588 Culture West Road. Is it convenient for you to receive?
C: Who are you?
A: I am Cainiao's voice assistant. I'd like to confirm your morning delivery to 588 Culture West Road. Does that work for you?
C: I'm not home in the morning.
A: Then do you have another address that you'd like to use?
Within 30 seconds, the agent has smoothly handled three common, and tricky, conversational ingredients: interruption, nonlinear conversation, and implicit intent. Interruption is self-explanatory: the agent can respond to the customer's interruption and continue relaying relevant information without starting over or skipping a beat.
I somehow feel good about this... (Score:2, Insightful)
From the summary:
But unlike Google, which has rolled out the feature to select audience, Alibaba's offering already has a wider reach. And it's smart, too.
When one consider's Google's latest [crazy] shenanigans with respect to Android's messaging, I feel good to a degree, that companies outside the USA, are showing Google what is possible.
Further, Americans will soon come to realize that there's innovation from outside the continental USA; and that we may not be all that important when compared to some technological spots in the world.
With these things happening, Google may perhaps wake up before it's too late.
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They discontinued Allo, one of their many messaging app. The fact that there are many is the problem, they can't seem to get it right.
Re: I somehow feel good about this... (Score:2, Interesting)
News flash, we Americans already know that innovation comes from outside the US as well. However China has a reputation for stealing tech and claiming its their own. Their military is mostly made up of Soviet tech that granted they upgraded but still stole a bunch too. The insults on Americans are tiresome and ignorant. Its about as ignorant as claiming conservatives are anti science when many of us are in the IT field and highly educated. My kids are brought up to be opened minded and use common sense whe
Re: I somehow feel good about this... (Score:2, Interesting)
I never said i dont believe in climate change, you did. I dont believe man is at fault for everything with the climate and just taxing us and removing fossil fuels will fix all the world's problems. As a logical and common sense person, the climate is always changing and goes in cycles, to say otherwise is ignorant. I also have a problem with the climate data when you cant get the original data, unmodified. However man can have an impact on the environment and needs handle things in a reasonable manor, not
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I'll add this:
If the government really believed that we should not pollute and waste energy, it would tell people to NOT BUY stuff. DO NOT buy a new TV until the current one breaks beyond repair, DO NOT buy a new iPhone, DO NOT buy a new car if it is not orders of magnitude more efficient than your current one. DO NOT SPEND.
Making things creates waste and uses energy. When you throw out a working TV, it creates waste, even if it is recycled, some waste is created and recycling uses energy (less than if the
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You don't have to worry about evil corporate profits to understand why that wouldn't work.
The government is "the few". Piss off a bunch of rich people who own and/or run companies and they have a problem.
Piss off everyone in the entire country by telling them that they cannot have the things they want, and you aren't running the government any more.
Heck, banning alcohol in the US created a culture of widespread criminality as people ignored the regulations. The current drug war has wrought similar proble
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And yet, the government runs ads against alcohol and has banned smoking in some areas. So, there should also be ads against consumerism, telling people of the options they have beside going and buying the new shiny.
Otherwise it really seems like the environment is just another excuse the government and the companies use to make people buy things or pay money:
Internal combustion engine cars are wasteful - buy these new electric cars, look how cheap they are to run and ignore the fact that ~50% of gasoline pr
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Working in IT to science is like Farming to Combine design; i.e. nothing.
Also, you can be educated (that is went to school) and ignorant at the same time.
Lastly, belief system (your word) and the scientific method are mutually exclusive.
Re: I somehow feel good about this... (Score:5, Interesting)
Here's some of what I've learned over the years. I've been traveling to China for 20 years, lived in Shanghai from 2005 to 2011, and married a Chinese lady. I still spend about 3-4 months a year, at 2-4 weeks at a time, working with several Chinese suppliers and visiting friends and acquaintances.
China, as a culture, does not have the same drive for innovation. Due to 40+ years of heavy, Government/Communist control (top-down), and the same ethos in most businesses (the boss is ALWAYS right, and you cannot challenge him unless you want to clean out your desk and move on), innovation really isn't rewarded, nor even encouraged.
Innovation is looking at the world, and thinking "there's a better way". That is simply not what the ruling generation (50+), nor their kids, understand. Now THEIR kids (currently in grade school) will "get it", and change. The attitude is already starting to swing with the "gen X" age group, but out of deference to their parents and grandparents they maintain the old cultural norm against challenging your superiors.
Additionally, the culture doesn't really do development well. There's a herd mentality, where there is often a good idea of where you are, where you want to be - and not a clue how to map out between the two. Most development happens the way most things in China happen - lots of people working on the problem and one of them gets lucky. There's very little planning and process down at the level needed for real development, or for any research/innovation.
China, right now, really doesn't innovate. Even innovative companies start with someone else's direction, and typically require lots of intervention to complete their "innovation". There are a ton of really smart people over there, but culturally they are held back from actual innovation. Innovation happens with smart people in a room saying "we can do it better, and I can do better than you". China doesn't do that very well, at all, in a business situation. Doing better than your boss results in you losing your job - and thus it's implicitly discouraged to try to innovate.
Go live in the culture over there for several months - you'll get it. New ideas aren't pursued, disagreements about direction/solutions is actively discouraged, not just doing as you're told risks losing your job.
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How is that different in the USA? HP turned down Steve Wozniak's desktop computer idea, and he had to quit to pursue it. The most successful startups begin in a garage, loft, or dorm, not a regular company with suits.
One can relatively easily go off and start a company in China also. Perhaps the idea of challenging the boss or elders is somewhat more accepted here, but you usually have to kis
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Sadly, this still is popular among the older types. I work now in an environment where it is like this. If you make waves people will find ways to fire you. Last place was even worse where and give you bad performance reviews to HR without you or your boss knowing behind your back. Example your fly is down and HR gets 4 emails about it. I never found out who but I had to leave that other company by the time I found out grr. Some environments thrive on this. Others you make awesome friends and horrible enemi
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Many of these anecdotes do come from the types of people with incredibly high net worth in the USA for a reason. That upper tier is mostly staffed by narcissists and an old guard. The fact that people will back stab each other over positions doesn't change the fundamental cultural difference between the USA and China.
In America a request for innovation flows down, now depending on the size of the company this often results in naval-gazing and pointless alignment meetings to drive buzzword so the buzzword bu
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How is that different in the USA?
Pointing out a few anecdotes from the USA doesn't make it remotely the same. There's a real cultural difference that you're ignoring.
HP turned down Steve Wozniak's desktop computer idea, and he had to quit to pursue it.
Not the same thing. There's a big difference between rejecting ideas, and a bottom up request for ideas. Just because the former can happen in the USA doesn't mean the latter doesn't. Mind you it definitely doesn't in China. You do what your boss tells you, no more, no less. If you do more and it fails you will get fired. If you do more and it works you tell your boss who will
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Note that I am responding to a post that was supported with only anecdotes. Why should one person's anecdotes override another's?
Often it's only on paper; a Dilbertian exercise in buzzword compliance.
I will agree that more autonomy is probably tolerated in US companies, but the level and proportion is hard to objectively measure. If anyone wishes to provide an objective study on such, it wou
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Note that I am responding to a post that was supported with only anecdotes. Why should one person's anecdotes override another's?
The GP's anecdotes are 100% in line with the cultural and historic practices of the country. Yours are not. People's anecdotes don't invalidate each other, not unless everyone has the same anecdote, ... then we call that data.
Often it's only on paper
Which is a key step to make it happen in practice. There's a difference between companies that fail to implement something they talk about and companies that don't even talk about it in the first place. Many American companies are the former.
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Shenzhen is where all that has changed. It's like the Silicon Valley of China.
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You need to recheck your cultural superiority complex. You can tell yourself that the Chinese don't "innovate" to help yourself feel better but that doesn't make it true. The uncomfortable truth is that state sanctioned hacking and stealing of foreign technology is a part of China's innovation. China turned its 1.4 billion citizens, that was once consider to be a burden, ie too many mouth to feed, into the world's biggest honeypot to lure in foreign corporations and siphons off their trade secrets t
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Re: I somehow feel good about this... (Score:2)
To paint them all with the same brush...
Funny, that; parent didn't say a single thing about any Chinese person, much less all of them.
I don't envy PLA shills: you have an even harder job than our own shills and yet you're even less competent... for cultural reasons or whatever, I just don't see you miserable fucks achieving the slightest success.
Condolences, of course.
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I get that you feel Google is Your enemy, there fore you root for Ali Baba.
But sometimes the enemy of your enemy still is your enemy as well.
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The sad fact of the matter is that the USA's educational system has
Re:I somehow feel good about this... (Score:4, Interesting)
Nah, you will be fine with English, the trading tongue, sure it will change over time and incorporate other words from other languages, that can not be expressed in english, no word equivalent, without explaining them. Chinese can not win because, inefficient and a whole host of other languages ie German, Spanish, Japanese, Russian and even French. So bastardised English will trade dominate, for simple efficiency and neutral, American will be ignored of course.
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Any time anything comes from China about any scientific advances they've made, those sorts of people are going to claim it's because "they fake science."
That's because literally most of the "science" coming out of China is fake. We wait for corroboration before we believe because it's reasonable, not because we're prejudiced against Chinese people. The same people in a different system would probably produce superior output.
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Do you know of the quote:
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win,"
Because if you do, you would know that China is advanced in many ways the USA can only dream of.
They have most extensive modern & extensive high-speed rail net work in the world, with hardware Chinese built.
They boast the biggest electric car manufacturing firms in the world. Forget Tesla.
They have some of the most modern cities in the world. In fact, Shenzhen is more modern than New York.
With 5
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The same people in a different system would probably produce superior output.
And they do. Mandarin Chinese have about an order of magnitude higher average IQ than, say, Euro-Americans. Which is why US universities discriminate against them.
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health care in this country is fine.
Healthcare in America is FANTASTIC. It's the financial care that you require afterwards that lets the country down. :-)
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I don't know about Chinese science, but I assume that any tech demo, especially if prerecorded, is fake. At least when announcing breakthrough technology.
Oranges to apples? (Score:1)
A domain-specific bot, such as package delivery, is much easier to tune and perfect then a general assistant which has to handle a wider array of topics.
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Oddly, the author, Karen Hao, is an ME that did not cut it in that field, so tried software in data, but apparently was not good enough, and now is trying to be a reporter in AI. So, she is now trying to learn how to be both a reporter and how AI works.
She obviously has some work to do.
Re:Oranges to apples? (Score:4, Informative)
From the article: "That Alibaba's voice assistant can do so suggests it's more sophisticated than Google Duplex, judging from similar sample calls demoed by Google. It's worth noting, however, that Alibaba's demo call is designed for onstage presentation; the experience could differ in reality. Currently, the agent is used only to coordinate package deliveries, but Jin said it could be expanded to handle other topics. He wouldn't fully reveal how the assistant was trained..."
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Even the marketing demonstrations don't work. [youtube.com]
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TFA is fine. It explains clearly in layperson language what the three main issues that the AI handles are (interruption, nonlinear conversation and implicit intent) and then explains that Google's similarly pre-recorded demo did not demonstrate an ability to handle them.
She then notes the limitations of the system and what was not demonstrated or revealed by Alibaba (a live demo or opportunity to test it herself, and the exact training method beyond a mention of the vast number of similar calls they handle
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Yeah, I gotta agree..... the "better than google" bit was a little on the click-bait side, but other than that, it was a bog standard article covering a tech demo. They are usually not terribly critical of the claims presented, unless they are obviously fraudulent from the jump.
This was a decent summary of what was presented.
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Cool (Score:1)
It shows how a business with a practical need can outperform a science experiment.
I'm sure the Google guys working on Google Duplex feel good about themselves and their team's commitment to diversity (or whatever other talking-points Google people recite to each other) though.
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Another thing broken on YouTube: until recently I could click the button to enable subtitles at any time. But since the last few days if I don't click before some unknown other shit on the page loads, the button does not work.
They're breaking things that used to work perfectly. What a bunch of dumbasses.
Knowing the region (Score:5, Insightful)
It's probably more mechanical turk than AI bot.
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Yes. Everything that comes from China needs to be taken with a large bucket of salt.
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You can buy salt by the bucket from Alibaba. A company whose market cap is about to surpass that of Amazon.
Salt is healthy in this regard. But taking don't cause yourself blood pressure issues just because of Jhina
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It's probably more mechanical turk than AI bot.
I had a similar thought upon seeing the demo presentation...
You could build that interaction with a Genesys IVR system.... heck, you could have built it 10 years ago... and it wouldn't have a lick of AI involved. It would be extremely cool and a great use of IVR, but it wouldn't be groundbreaking.
Building that interaction without any specific question/response trees and completely using AI to understand the conversation is a completely different animal and is amazing. It isn't clear exactly where
To make matters worse ... (Score:2)
The NYC Coroner's office uses the Alibaba Voice Assistant to schedule pick-ups. /too-soon?
Well, American companies already cripple their AI (Score:1)
decency, not feminism. (Score:3)
Well, American companies already cripple their AI assistants intentionally in the name of feminism
It's not crippled, it just doesn't indulge people in their own reprehensible behavior.
From the article:
In spring of 2017, Alexa’s writers gave her a “disengage mode.” She now responds to sexually explicit questions by saying either “I’m not going to respond to that,” or “I’m not sure what outcome you expected.”
Sorry if you this triggers you but you're being a real snowflake.
Re: decency, not feminism. (Score:2)
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The behavior is reprehensible all on it's own, no second person required, snowflake. Mayhaps you need a dictionary to understand the word?
I'd much rather have a "smart assisstant" (Score:2)
to answer my phone, and keep Indian "Microsoft Technical Support" callers busy for an hour or two.
Or route calls from unknown callers to the appropriate /dev/null mailbox. It shouldn't be quite as bad as "Lenny" as long as it keeps them busy not bothering actual humans.
A "Smart Assistant" could also take calls and appropriately pass on information that was actually of value without filling up my phone inbox.
Chasing the Wrong Goal Post (Score:1)
I don't want to talk to a machine like it's a person. It's not a person.
I want to talk to a machine like it's a machine. Give me efficient interactions, avoid fake emotions, and don't try to be something you're not.
The rest of the conversation (Score:2)
... ... the afternoon I gues
C: I'm not home in the morning.
A: Then do you have another address that you'd like to use?
C: Can you reschedule for later in the day?
A: I see that your reputation score is low. By asking us to reschedule, your score will drop lower. Are you sure you want to do that?
C: Oh, sorry.
A: It is too late. You have asked about rescheduling. We are cancelling your delivery and reporting your bad behavior. Would you prefer the corrections officers visit you in the morning or the afternoon?
C:
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It's funny because you said that here, not in China....
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Err none of that is true.
Mandarin has 5 tones (4 + neutral)
Cantonese has 6 tones.
Chinese is far more difficult to write speech recognition for.
The only way it wins is in terms of accents. Being a tonal language there's no room for accents to mess up the language. You're either saying something in an understandable way or you're not.
What is easier for Chinese is to create a computer based voice synthesizer since tones and individual words stand on their own.
It's AI superior assistant because... (Score:1)
Telemarketers (Score:2)
Lies? (Score:1)
Can someone give me clarification on a few things here?
Where is the info on the release? The article mentioned talks about a demo on December 2nd, but that is all I am seeing. There is mention of a chat bot used by 20% of the people.
Where is the proof that it is better? They show 7 lines from a demo. This could have been attempted 50 times. It was also translated from Chinese for the posting. Was the syntax okay, or was it butchered like a foreigner? And why only 7 lines translated?
This reeks of som
Two words... (Score:2)
Happy...
Flow...
I really want to feel happy too, but when I look at Ali Express' completely pathetic attempts to automatically translate their product listings in Dutch I'm not convinced at all.
When looking for electronics components online the word 'pitch' is used a lot (as in 0.1 pitch). This is consistently translated to 'frequency of tone' by AliXP's retarded AI.
So they just put in a few more if-else statements (Score:2)
Corporate Espionage (Score:1)
Alibaba utilizes corporate espionage to make a better product and passes the savings on to their customers.