About the background of the case
Tmall Genie Children's Intelligent Experience Framework (hereinafter referred to as GIIE, Genie frame: Interact, Accompany, Enlighten) is a new generation of children's artificial intelligence applications relying on the Tmall Genie Interactive System (AliGenie), including technical interfaces, product ecology, experience standards, and safety rules. Gradually formed the core concept of "interactive world, intelligent accompaniment, fair enlightenment". Focusing on the enlightenment needs of children aged 0-18, experts from intelligent technology, educational products and digital content have created 11 categories of core interactive experiences, precipitated more than 84 related patents, and jointly formed a software and hardware integration experience in the category of IAEA "Interact(Interact)-Accompany(Enlighten)".
In addition to self-developed smart products, Tmall Genie will also output core intelligent capabilities such as algorithms, chips, and content to children's product enterprises, making more traditional devices quickly intelligent. Users can also interact intelligently in these devices. At present, the products cooperated with the outside world under the GIAGE framework involve categories such as children's story machines, children's watches, children's early education machines/point reading learning machines, etc., and have served more than 20 million users so far.
Tmall Genie smart speaker was launched in 2017, breaking the gap in the field of Chinese smart speakers in one fell swoop, Tmall Genie has created a new generation of children's enlightenment system that supports a variety of interaction methods, providing a series of functions such as children's desktop, accurate content ageing, eye protection reminder, sitting posture monitoring, parental control and so on. It is industry-leading in key technical fields such as speech recognition accuracy and speech synthesis naturalness.
The team's technical solutions are also integrated into more public welfare actions in Alibaba Group. For example, the development of the "reunion system" to help lost children go home, the development of the deer lantern public welfare project to provide assistance for children with serious diseases, the launch of the "Nurturing the Future" project to improve the early development of 0-3-year-old children in rural areas, the launch of the "Pine Cone Public Welfare" project to provide literacy education for children in rural areas, the "Child Companion Mother" project to provide companionship for left-behind children, the release of the "Aliyun Technology Youth Enlightenment Program" to help children's scientific and technological enlightenment... Not only that, Alibaba has also brought together many forces to join hands with social welfare organizations and a number of child care public welfare projects to make it possible for everyone to participate in child protection work.
Traditional mobile phone applications, traditional Internet devices have some insurmountable industry pain points, mainly focused on content control, children's health protection, interactive convenience, China's domestic Chinese as the main language of smart speaker equipment in a vacuum period, etc., in addition, the equipment is generally more expensive, for remote, underdeveloped areas of children and their families to obtain there is greater economic pressure. In the process of system design, the Tmall Genie team insisted that fairness and non-discrimination should be prioritized, and was committed to creating an environment that promotes child-friendly artificial intelligence and ensures the safety of children through artificial intelligence technology.
Specific measures on technical programmes
Tmall Genie needs to be a good listener for children. For this core technical requirement, the Tmall Genie Interaction System (AliGenie) has built a special child-oriented module as an important entrance to children's interaction. This is a multi-level module based on technologies such as speech recognition (ASR) and natural language processing (NLP). For example, based on feedback from real users, Tmall Genie can accurately understand "Tmall Genie, sing a lot of heads", a non-standard voice command from a 21-month-old girl.
The Tmall Genie developer team also designed a set of aisle-powered automatic care modules for children. For example, in a scene where a child uses a Tmall Genie at close range, the Tmall Genie accurately identifies the child's viewing distance through its face ranging ability, reminding the child and its guardian that the child needs to maintain a suitable distance to protect the development of the eye. Accurate identification of sitting posture reminds the child and his or her guardian that children need to maintain a correct sitting posture to avoid spinal dysplasia.
Child-centered AI solutions. First, create an environment that promotes child-friendly AI. In the current environment, a large number of products are more from the perspective of adults to develop systems and digital technologies, while ignoring the rights of children. In the dimension of accompaniment, from the three aspects of content, puzzle game interaction, and parent connection, accompany every link of children's healthy growth; In the enlightenment dimension, an encyclopedia knowledge graph is established, which provides knowledge Q&A capabilities for 15 categories such as people, animals, plants, geography, history, and festivals, provides rich graphic and video answers, and establishes a number of special Q&A capabilities such as "Sound Museum, Character Planet, Genie Chinese, Animal Encyclopedia" based on user needs. The unique knowledge graph covers 15 categories, 189 subcategories, and 3397704 entities, providing more accurate knowledge Q&A queries. At present, the above technologies have served tens of millions of child users in various regions.
Second, ensure the safety of children. The basic bottom line of the GIAE framework is to ensure that children are healthy and safe. Children are physically and psychologically different from adults and are subject to different AI systems. For example, children use digital services and applications in unexpected ways, and psychologically, they are prone to lack the ability to judge the quality of information and content. Therefore, the particularities of children need to be fully taken into account.
In addition, fairness and non-discrimination should be given priority. The GIAE framework will also insist that fairness and non-discrimination should be prioritized. Actively support marginalized children with the potential to benefit from AI systems, and strive to enable children in different regions and at different stages of development to improve their digital literacy. The development of voice interaction capabilities adapted to dialects in different parts of China, such as the Sichuan dialect version that has been developed and launched, and the Cantonese version that will be launched soon, provides more possibilities for children in more remote areas. The understanding and support of these dialects is no less difficult than the understanding and support of a new language, but "fairness" is always a key factor that we value very much and must be considered in a priority position.
In addition, in terms of digital content, it accesses a large number of children's enlightenment and educational content, and provides services to users in various regions of China through Tmall Genie products and technologies. In terms of business strategy, it penetrates into the commodity logistics network in underdeveloped areas. In terms of ecological impacts. Through our algorithms, chips, and content are exported within the framework of GIAGE, more traditional devices can also get an intelligent experience, and users can also interact with Tmall Genie through voice in these devices, so as to better and more fully serve diverse child users.
About applying effects
In the field of product design and intelligent technology, Tmall Genie has produced good children's enlightenment value, and in the field of product design and intelligent technology, it has won the 2018 China Intelligent Terminal Gold Award, the 2020 German IF Design Award, the 2021 ZOL Recommendation Award and the 2019 Wu Wenjun Artificial Intelligence Science and Technology Progress Award (the award is known as the highest award in the field of intelligent science and technology in China). It has obtained the iso-standard authoritative certification of ISO27001, ISO29151 and ISO27018 information security management system for many consecutive years, and has been monitored by the authoritative monitoring of China Thiel Laboratory. In addition, we have precipitated 84 patents on artificial intelligence technology, and have designed and developed more friendly and equal technical capabilities with children as the center, which can better serve children in different regions and at different stages of development. Through fun interaction, children can have fun and education, grow up scientifically, and cultivate and promote children to enjoy the dividends of artificial intelligence technology development. (The case submission unit is from Alibaba Group Holdings Limited, the above is a partial excerpt, please contact the project team for full text.) ）
Source: Guangming Network