In the first half of this year, OpenAI released GPT-4, a generative AI big language model that is "more creative and collaborative" than any previous AI system. Since then, the model has been popular in various industries, and the most talked about industry applications include education, because the model "benchmarks human performance in various professional and academic fields" - GPT-4 scored more than 90% of candidates on the mock bar test, and performed more than 89% of human candidates on the SAT math test.
Given the model's excellence in learning knowledge, GPT-4's first customers include the learning app duolingo, which has upgraded its subscription-to-paid products to provide users with generative character conversations and answers. American Edtech company Chegg has partnered with OpenAI to upgrade its new cheggmate product as a generative content and topic learning AI assistant for users.
In China, education and technology companies are successively launching generic or more vertical generative AI large model products and tools benefiting from existing high-quality knowledge content or technical foundation. The following is a review of the product applications of each company in this innovation direction since the first half of the year:
Good future
In February this year, the company launched the AI lecture robot "Xiao π" on its learning machine products, supporting mathematical operations and lectures. According to the company, in the actual measurement, the "small π" AI lecture robot supports intelligent disassembly and analysis of the topic, and generates a smooth explanation of the answering method. The tutorial robot currently supports complex calculations such as fractions and decimals.
In May, the company announced that it was working on MathGPT, a large mathematical model. The big mathematical model is aimed at math enthusiasts and scientific research institutions, with problem-solving and problem-solving algorithms as the core, and the company says that MathGPT has achieved phased results.
According to the company, "The currently widely used LLM large models come from training on massive linguistic texts and are therefore the best at language processing." The industry tends to use LLM large models for reading and writing applications, but if you want to make a breakthrough in mathematical ability, you need to develop new large models. Therefore, Xueersi decided to form a team to specialize in the field of mathematics large model MathGPT, in order to complete the mathematical foundation work in the era of AI large model. The company said that the self-developed vertical mathematical large model needs to solve three problems: "the problem is solved correctly, the problem solving steps are stable and clear, and the explanation of the problem should be interesting and personalized." The large model is said to be available at the end of July. It is said that this year, the company will launch a production-level application based on the MathGPT large model.
Recently, at its programming product upgrade and artificial intelligence course press conference, Xueersi Online School announced the launch of its self-developed large-language model generative AI course "Artificial Intelligence First Course". The company said that the new course has launched 7 AI creation tools, which will teach students to use AIGC tools to create works that combine text, pictures, and audio, such as audio picture books, creative posters, etc., to cultivate children's creativity.
iFLYTEK
iFLYTEK said in February this year that it had "further launched the generative pre-training large model task in December 2022, and iFLYTEK AI learning machine, iFLYTEK hearing and other products will be the first to land".
In April, the company released the AIGC content creation platform "iFLYTEK Smart Creation" for audio and video creation scenarios, which provides content creation services such as AI dubbing and AI virtual anchor video production, making the creation of content more flexible and low-cost. The generative content creation platform has 86 human-like "voice people" and 133 sound banks, which users can choose according to their usage scenarios.
In early May, the company released the iFLYTEK Spark cognitive large model, "Whether it is the 48 main task directions released through ChatGPT, or the various application needs of general artificial intelligence through the developer team of more than 4 million real-name authentication on the iFLYTEK artificial intelligence open platform, we have analyzed the seven dimensions of current general artificial intelligence that attract attention, including text generation, language understanding, knowledge question and answer, logical reasoning, mathematical ability, code ability and multimodal ability." ”
At present, the AI education scenario of this large model is suitable for English listening and speaking, AI learning machine, iFLYTEK hearing, etc., and supports content generation and correction and tutoring functions.
Among them, the AI learning machine T20 series launched by iFLYTEK in the first half of the year has been equipped with this large model - to help student users with Chinese and English composition human grading and content generation, etc., the company said, "iFLYTEK AI learning machine has achieved in-depth high-level marking around writing requirements, analysis of the whole structure and literary style, and grading comments layer by layer like a teacher, making essay marking more efficient." It can also realize the inspiration of writing ideas, and use AI editing technology to generate fragment optimization references and writing suggestions to improve, so that children can accurately improve in inspiration. The large model also supports users to get experience such as personalized precision learning of mathematics, human-like tutoring, and English language sparring.
In addition, the company and Huawei recently jointly released an integrated solution for large-model training and promotion, which is used to accelerate the application of large models in various industries.
NetEase has a way
Youdao invested in the research and development of AIGC technology in February this year, and tried to apply it in learning scenarios such as AI speaking and Chinese correction. Among them, the AI speaking application supports functions such as speaking assessment, situational dialogue, and voice recitation. The company said during the February earnings season that AIGC and big language models have an important impact on edtech, and the company is closely monitoring the field and laying a good technical foundation.
In May this year, Youdao released its "Ziyue" large model, and the large model launched by the company has made phased progress in the implementation of AI speaking and Chinese composition correction. "The company believes that the exploration of vertical segmentation scenarios will help AIGC better land."
During the first-quarter earnings season, the company said it had "released several new generative AI products and features":
"We have released several new products and features based on generative AI. As we mentioned earlier, the AI-Box function in Youdao Translation, the opening function in Youdao Dictionary Pen, and the AI voice review based on generative artificial intelligence in our Go course. In less than a month since its launch, AI-Box has been used nearly 1 million times, which is a good momentum. ”
Among them, Youdao Translation AI-Box currently supports functions such as sentence editing, grammar correction, writing suggestions, key refinement, word encyclopedia, and AI writing correction.
The company also recently demonstrated the latest application of the "Ziyu" large model "Virtual Human Language Coach" at the World Artificial Intelligence Exhibition, which provides users with a human-like oral personal training experience - "It can not only provide emotional feedback on the practitioner's answer, but also actively throw questions and change the topic slightly, thereby guiding the conversation to continue."
New Oriental
New Oriental mentioned during its latest earnings season that the company will "cautiously explore the possibility of applying new AI technologies such as ChatGPT to educational products." New Oriental established Beijing Huizhi Easy Reading Technology Co., Ltd. in March this year, and its business scope includes AI software development.
In addition, New Oriental's AI development platform has launched AI products such as New Oriental Speaking, New Oriental Practice Assistant, and Tadpole Live Assistant. Among them, New Oriental Speaking provides free oral learning tools for teachers and students, and based on phonetics-related technologies, "oral evaluation is carried out from the dimensions of speech speed, fluency, completeness, and accuracy". New Oriental Practice Assistant provides teachers with teaching management tools, based on self-developed image technology, to realize automatic marking of oral arithmetic, multiple choice questions, fill-in-the-blank questions, English composition and other question types. Its AI education solutions include dual-teacher AI classrooms, which provide intelligent dual-teacher AI classroom solutions with the help of intelligent hardware and AI technology, combined with high-quality teachers.
Homework help
The company is also testing its education model, which is said to be used in multidisciplinary disintegration, Chinese and English composition correction, multilingual dialogue education scenarios, involving smart hardware, tool applications, etc. The companies of Homework are registering a number of large model-related trademarks: "Hanhai Big Model", "Galaxy Big Model" and so on. The company was recently selected into the "Beijing General Artificial Intelligence Large Model Application Scenario Demand List".
In addition, the company also launched a new AI learning machine in the first half of the year, which is said to have launched a "one-on-one AI teacher" model, "from the four links of thorough testing, making plans, following up the whole process, and supervising learning, guiding students to conduct targeted learning based on one-on-one learning programs based on AI big data."
These include "AI teachers set goals according to students' level, match personalized class schedules, intelligently recommend topics and select topics, and effectively improve according to students' actual learning conditions." In addition, it supports AI tools such as AI homework correction, AI essay correction, fingertip word search, and oral arithmetic practice."
Century Tianhong
Shenzhen Stock Exchange listed Century Tianhong said at the results briefing in March this year that the development of new technologies such as artificial intelligence and AIGC will bring new changes to the education industry, and the company will "use the advantages of existing users of teaching and auxiliary products and focus on school use scenarios to combine with cutting-edge artificial intelligence technology, and explore the landing and application of artificial intelligence in smart education scenarios with enterprises with advanced technology." ”
The company said that in the education AI business, it will rely on its content resource advantages to build a content middle platform, and provide content guarantee with new course standards, new teaching materials, and new college entrance examinations to meet the needs of multi-scenario education. At present, the product has deeply covered students' daily homework, weekly/monthly exams, midterm/final teaching scenarios and other teaching scenarios, and continues to extend to other application teaching scenarios based on this. In addition, in terms of strategic investment, the company invested in Beijing Yiyi Liangjiao Technology Co., Ltd. and Beijing Microrubber Technology Co., Ltd., and laid out the fields of composition correction, precision teaching, artificial intelligence NLP and other fields.
Above. Generative AI big language models quickly penetrated into various industries and enterprise operations in the first half of this year. Edtech companies are plugging in or developing their own big models, launching new or upgrading existing education products – with the expectation of becoming innovative products. However, the current stage is only the beginning of the exploration of new technology applications, and it remains to be given feedback on how much they will change the education industry in the future and how they will improve consumers and customer experience.
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