Posts Tagged ‘Learning’

29 Aug

Announcing the 2017 Alexa Prize Finalists

Posted by cognitivecomputing in Agents, Language, Learning, Opinion, Web / Web 2.0. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , .

We’ve hit another milestone in the Alexa Prize, a $2.5 million university competition to advance conversational AI. University teams from around the world have been hard at work to create a socialbot, an AI capable of conversing coherently and engagingly with humans on popular topics and news events for 20 minutes.

I am now excited to announce the university teams that will be competing in the finals! After hundreds of thousands of conversations, the two socialbots with the highest average customer ratings during the semifinal period are Alquist from the Czech Technical University in Prague and Sounding Board from the University of Washington in Seattle. The wildcard team is What’s Up Bot from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland.

READ MORE:

developer.amazon.com/blogs/alexa/post/783df492-4770-4b11-81ac-59e009669d56/announcing-the-2017-alexa-prize-finalists

 

1 Jun

Conversational AI: Voice-Based Intelligent Agents

Posted by cognitivecomputing in Agents, Language, Learning, Opinion, Talks, Web / Web 2.0. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , .

As we moved from the age of the keyboard, to the age of touch, and now to the age of voice, natural conversation in everyday language continues to be one of the ultimate challenges for AI. This is a difficult scientific problem involving knowledge acquisition, natural language understanding, natural language generation, context modeling, commonsense reasoning and dialog planning, as well as a complex product design problem involving user experience and conversational engagement.

I will talk about why Conversational AI is hard, how conversational agents like Amazon Alexa understand and respond to voice interactions, how you can leverage these technologies for your own applications, and the challenges that still remain.

Variants of this talk presented (click links for video):
 
Keynote talks at The AI Conference (2017), O’Reilly AI Conference (2017), The AI Summit (2017), Stanford ASES Summit (2017), MLconf AI Conference (2017), Global AI Conference (2016).
 
Distinguished lectures at Georgia Tech/GVU (2017), Northwestern University (2017).
 
Keynote panel at Conversational Interaction Conference (2016).
 
Lightning TED-style talks at IIT Bay Area Conference (2017), Intersect (2017).
 

18 May

Join the Alexa Prize Journey and Test the Socialbots

Posted by cognitivecomputing in Agents, Language, Learning, Opinion, Web / Web 2.0. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , .

On September 29, 2016, Amazon announced the Alexa Prize, a $2.5 million university competition to advance conversational AI through voice. In April, university teams from around the world assembled at the appropriately named Day 1 building in Seattle for the Alexa Prize Summit. The event was a base camp for teams to share learnings and make preparations for the most challenging leg of their journey: to build and scale an AI capable of conversing coherently and engagingly with humans for 20 minutes.

As they build their “socialbots,” they will encounter esoteric problems like context modeling and dialog planning as well as exoteric problems like user experience and conversational engagement. And they will need all the help they can get.

We invite you to join the students on their journey and help them along the way. You can interact with their socialbots simply by saying, “Alexa, let’s chat” on any device with Alexa.

READ MORE:
developer.amazon.com/blogs/alexa/post/e4cc64d1-f334-4d2d-8609-5627939f9bf7/join-the-alexa-prize-journey-and-test-the-socialbots

 

23 Feb

Making The Future Possible: Conversational AI in Amazon Alexa

Posted by cognitivecomputing in Agents, Language, Learning, Opinion, Talks. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , .

No longer is AI solely a subject of science fiction. Advances in AI have resulted in enabling technologies for computer vision, planning, decision making, robotics, and most recently spoken language understanding. These technologies are driving business growth, and releasing workers to engage in more creative and valuable tasks.

I’ll talk about the moved from the age of the keyboard, to the age of touch, and are now entering the age of voice. Alexa is making this future possible. Amazon is committed to fostering a robust cloud-based voice service, and it is this voice service that the innovators of today, tomorrow, and beyond will be building. It is this voice service—and the ecosystem around it—that awaits the next generation of AI talent.

Keynote at Udacity Intersect Conference, Computer History Museum, Mountain View, CA, March 8, 2017.
 

READ MORE:

blog.udacity.com/2017/02/dr-ashwin-ram-intersect-2017-speaker.html

VIEW THE TALK:

linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6286681682187812864

 

14 Nov

Announcing the Sponsored Teams for the 2016-2017 Alexa Prize

Posted by cognitivecomputing in Agents, Language, Learning, Opinion, Web / Web 2.0. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , .

On September 29, 2016, Amazon announced the Alexa Prize, a $2.5 million university competition to advance conversational AI through voice. We received applications from leading universities across 22 countries. Each application was carefully reviewed by senior Amazon personnel against a rigorous set of criteria covering scientific contribution, technical merit, novelty, and ability to execute. Teams of scientists, engineers, user experience designers, and product managers read, evaluated, discussed, argued, and finally selected the ten teams who would be invited to participate in the competition. Wait, make that twelve; we received so many good applications from graduate and undergraduate students that we decided to sponsor two additional teams.

Today, we’re excited to announce the 12 teams selected to compete with an Amazon sponsorship.

READ MORE:

developer.amazon.com/blogs/post/Tx1UXVV4VJTPYTL/announcing-the-sponsored-teams-for-the-2016-2017-alexa-prize

29 Sep

The Alexa Prize: $2.5M to Advance Conversational AI

Posted by cognitivecomputing in Agents, Language, Learning, Opinion, Web / Web 2.0. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , .

Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming ubiquitous. With advances in technology, algorithms, and sheer compute power, it is now becoming practical to utilize AI techniques in many everyday applications including transportation, healthcare, gaming, productivity, and media. Yet one seemingly intuitive task for humans still eludes computers: natural conversation. Simple and natural for humans, voice communication in everyday language continues to be one of the ultimate challenges for AI.

Today, we are pleased to announce the Alexa Prize, a $2.5 million university competition to advance conversational AI through voice. Teams of university students around the world are invited to participate in the Alexa Prize (see contest rules for details). The challenge is to create a socialbot, an Alexa skill that converses coherently and engagingly with humans on popular topics for 20 minutes. We challenge teams to invent an Alexa socialbot smart enough to engage in a fun, high quality conversation on popular topics for 20 minutes.

Are you up to the challenge?

READ MORE:

developer.amazon.com/public/community/post/Tx221UQAWNUXON3/Are-you-up-to-the-Challenge-Announcing-the-Alexa-Prize-2-5-Million-to-Advance-Co

Newer Entries »