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Student Team Wins Amazon Alexa Artificial Intelligence Challenge

ucdavis.edu

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Re: Student Team Wins Amazon Alexa Artificial Intelligence Challenge

#31

Post by choot »

conroy wrote: post #5
dominotw wrote: post #3

edit: comment was (unintentionally) offensive

EDIT: Flagged. Thanks to masonic for teaching me how to use HN. EDIT: I'm not sure how making judgements based on the ethnicity of the team members is "unintentional". Give me a break.

I downvoted you.

Ethinicity is indistinguishable part of our perception of people.

All people aren't same and equal. It's dangerous to pedal your line of thinking that we should assume everyone to be same.

Central Asians have the highest IQ in world. What's your problem with this fact?

Re: Student Team Wins Amazon Alexa Artificial Intelligence Challenge

#33

Post by choot »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #11
govg wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, ML/AI grad school has significant Chinese and Indian student population. It's not surprising to see this team composition.

> In the US, ML/AI grad school has significant Chinese and Indian student population It is somewhat surprising to see that, though. I suspected something like this just from the sample of author names on papers I occasionally skim. I'm curious what's the story behind this? Why ML/AI in particular, instead of other branches of CS?

These countries have big population and using AI universal basic income can be made possible back home.

This is why Chinese are acquiring AI expertise.

Re: Student Team Wins Amazon Alexa Artificial Intelligence Challenge

#34

Post by sjg007 »

PakG1 wrote: post #19
TeMPOraL wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the US, ML/AI grad school has significant Chinese and Indian student population It is somewhat surprising to see that, though. I suspected something like this just from the sample of author names on papers I occasionally skim. I'm curious what's the story behind this? Why ML/AI in particular, instead of other branches of CS?

Who said other branches of CS don't experience this?

Or any stem subject.

Re: Student Team Wins Amazon Alexa Artificial Intelligence Challenge

#35

Post by ppod »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #27
eBombzor wrote: post #2

Just glancing through the teams it looks like UCD was the only team with a member (Chun-Yen C) that has industry experience. Everyone else pretty much stayed inside academia. Wonder how much of a factor that was to their success.

The teams were selected to compete. I wonder if a team heavy on industry experience would have been selected compete. Also, I wonder what Amazon gains from this? My cynical hat wants to think Amazon would have made the competitors sight over IP rights etc, but I haven’t looked in to the conditions of the completion so I’m spectacularly. Does anyone know how this is likely to pan out for the students, and not only tho…

>Amazon would have made the competitors sight over IP rights etc,

I would like to know this too. I think that since it is an academic competition, by default everything is open source and the method must be fully outlined in the system description paper, so I don't think IP would be an issue.

Re: Student Team Wins Amazon Alexa Artificial Intelligence Challenge

#37

Post by WrtCdEvrydy »

ppod wrote: post #35
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The teams were selected to compete. I wonder if a team heavy on industry experience would have been selected compete. Also, I wonder what Amazon gains from this? My cynical hat wants to think Amazon would have made the competitors sight over IP rights etc, but I haven’t looked in to the conditions of the completion so I’m spectacularly. Does anyone know how this is likely to pan out for the students, and not only tho…

>Amazon would have made the competitors sight over IP rights etc, I would like to know this too. I think that since it is an academic competition, by default everything is open source and the method must be fully outlined in the system description paper, so I don't think IP would be an issue.

Just because something is open source doesn't mean the IP is granted to everyone.

Re: Student Team Wins Amazon Alexa Artificial Intelligence Challenge

#39

Post by sambull »

B-Con wrote: post #21

Glad to see my alma mater doing well. > Some of the distinguishing features of the bot included incorporating language disfluencies — pauses such as “hm” or “ah.” Note that Google recently faced backlash over this very feature demoed in their Virtual Assistant. I'm guessing that public sentiment won't last long, it's a natural part of human language and it feels funny when it's missing.

Agreed the more we can trick users into thinking they are getting actual help the better

Re: Student Team Wins Amazon Alexa Artificial Intelligence Challenge

#40

Post by ecocentrik »

B-Con wrote: post #21

Glad to see my alma mater doing well. > Some of the distinguishing features of the bot included incorporating language disfluencies — pauses such as “hm” or “ah.” Note that Google recently faced backlash over this very feature demoed in their Virtual Assistant. I'm guessing that public sentiment won't last long, it's a natural part of human language and it feels funny when it's missing.

Each confrontation of the uncanny valley is an uncomfortable experience that gives us pause and causes us to consider the dangers of interacting with AI. It's a healthy learning experience that will linger with any part of the population that already distrusts AI. Since you probably want to sell to those people too, why not make allowances?

Disfluencies and breath sounds are peculiar when they're missing from human speech, so not injecting them into AI speech would be an easy design choice to distinguish a speaker as artificial, perfect for Virtual Assistants. For theatrical functions, in video games and movies, it makes sense to add as many human vocal quirks as possible, even the occasional resonance obstructions to simulate colds or a whistle for gap teeth.

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