China's Race for Artificial Intelligence (AI) Technology

[cirr]

Uber-like freight service steps up AI investment

2018-01-16 10:15 China Daily Editor: Mo Hong'e

Dai Wenjian (center), founder of truck-calling app Huochebang, gives instructions to an employee at the company's office in Guiyang, Guizhou province. (Photo/Xinhua)

Manbang Group created by merger of major players in sharing economy

China's largest Uber-like freight service provider will step up its investment into artificial intelligence, as it scrambles to tap into the new technology to boost efficiency in matching empty trucks with loads.

Manbang Group, which was created last November after China's top two truck-calling apps Huochebang and Yunmanman merged, has already set up an AI laboratory in Silicon Valley, in the hope of accessing cutting-edge technologies and top talent, said Xu Qiang, vice-president of Yunmanman. Yunmanman and Huochebang maintain independent operation after the merger.

According to Xu, more efforts will be made to accelerate the application of AI in the company's platforms and systems, after the merger created a tech player valued at more than $2 billion. Manbang Group is now the second-largest unicorn company in the Chinese logistics industry, following Alibaba Group Holding Ltd's logistics arm Cainiao, according to the Hurun China Unicorn Index 2017.

"We now have the world's largest truck application scenario, with tens of thousands of trucks looking for loads every day. AI will certainly be one of our focuses," Xu said.

Huochebang, backed by deep-pocketed investors such as Baidu Inc and Tencent Holdings Ltd, said its platform has about 4.8 million truck drivers and about 950,000 shippers who look for trucks to carry their goods. The number for Yunmanman is 4 million and 1 million respectively, with its services available in 334 cities across China.

The two companies, which announced a merger plan in November, were both major players in China's trucking market, which is estimated to be worth 5 trillion yuan ($776 billion). They allow shippers to post load information on mobile applications and connect them with truck drivers, so as to reduce a truck's empty miles and waiting time between loads.

The marriage is considered an effective move to end a costly battle, as the two players are seen as such close rivals that no winner was likely in the short term.

"Instead of fighting at each other's expense, we figure it is far better for us to devote more time and energy to upgrading ourselves. The sector is spinning so fast that everyone is likely to be left behind," Xu said.

After the merger, Wang Gang, a backer of Yunmanman and an angel investor in ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing, has become CEO of Manbang Group. Wang said the company aims to cover all the truck drivers in China and will expand into areas such as new-energy trucks and self-driving technologies.

http://www.ecns.cn/business/2018/01-16/288532.shtml

 

[TaiShang]

Challenge the "China Rise" narrative and you are attacked.

Say something positive about India and you must be an Indian= Little Pink's logic

Where are the "High IQ" Chinese that we so famously hear about? Because their absence on this forum is palpable.

China is a developing country, my Indian friend.

We are actually trying to construct a narrative against "the rise of China" and "China beating up the US" rhetoric.

That's quite different from the established SP12 narrative, right?

China's accomplishments are often impressive for a developing country that has yet to eradicate poverty, but, compared to your SP12, it has miles to go.

 

[MultaniGuy]

China is a developing country, my Indian friend.

We are actually trying to construct a narrative against "the rise of China" and "China beating up the US" rhetoric.

That's quite different from the established SP12 narrative, right?

China's accomplishments are often impressive for a developing country that has yet to eradicate poverty, but, compared to your SP12, it has miles to go.

lol India is also behind Pakistan when it comes to poverty.

 

[rott]

Challenge the "China Rise" narrative and you are attacked.

Say something positive about India and you must be an Indian= Little Pink's logic

Where are the "High IQ" Chinese that we so famously hear about? Because their absence on this forum is palpable.

You're an Indian.

 

[phancong]

Saddest part of the competition all the Chinese came in 1st and 2nd place in competition with Chinese participate in both team. And here a butthurt Indian failed to troll Chinese on China grand prize winner in the AI competition, literally he eggs his own face.

OOO the closet Indian again. . Alibaba beat Microsoft to it... do you understand the first to be above the average human in speech recognition. Just accept it.

he definitely irk by the fact on average Chinese had higher IQ compare to Indian, he definitely closet Indian.

 

[rott]

Saddest part of the competition all the Chinese came in 1st and 2nd place in competition with Chinese participate in both team. And here a butthurt Indian failed to troll Chinese on China grand prize winner in the AI competition, literally he eggs his own face.

he definitely irk by the fact on average Chinese had higher IQ compare to Indian, he definitely closet Indian.

Lol, and they want to dominate the Sub Continent countries with an IQ of 82 while it's eastern neighbor have a higher IQ.

 

[phancong]

Lol, and they want to dominate the Sub Continent countries with an IQ of 82 while it's eastern neighbor have a higher IQ.

India want to dominate the sub continent but lack the capacity to do so. All India neighbors except Bruthan refused to be in a submissive role of India first foreign relation between them and India foreign policy.

 

[kankan326]

Balanced world is good ... the best scenario is if all the countries are equal in power and technology.

Unfortunately the real scenario will be the strong countries become stronger than ever. And the weak countries will be relatively weaker. The gap will be bigger.

 

[Jlaw]

I expect Quantum tech/AI/nano-tech/hypersonic are among the first batch of area when China will achieve total domination over the sad americans, the americans are good at show-off and write english fake news, whilst the Chinese are much better at get business done.

Chinese need to start brushing up on writing "exaggerated" news like Americans and Indians.

 

[Figaro]

Good, now you can spare me the "Indian" label that half of you are so obsessed with.

Meanwhile, the US economy under Trump is booming with record high stock markets, 17 year low unemployment, growth in the hundreds of billions of dollars added, and GDP per capita near $60K.

This is technically untrue. Most of the economic growth sustained currently was due to the macroeconomic policies of the Obama Administration, not the Trump one. We all have to recognize that it was Obama who got the unemployment rate down from a peak of 10% to just 4.6%. Regarding the stock market, it was during Obama's tenure when the DOW increased from around 6000 in March 2009 to over 20,000 by the time he left office. The current stock market rally is only due to wildly optimistic expectations of Trump's corporate tax policy. And unfortunately, Trump takes credit for everything ... and even if I don't agree with many of Obama's policies, I have to admit he made a stellar economic turnaround. Whenever something goes in his favor, Trump gloats about how it was 100% his doing and whenever something goes against his favor ... he immediately outsources the blame (in many cases to Obama). Painfully seeing how so many Americans buy into everything Trump says makes me understand why we elected junior Bush.

Both teams are essentially tied.

An to refer to them as "losers"?

Yes, both are essentially tied. That is correct. But looking at the longer scheme of things, America is definitely the "loser". Just 5-10 years ago, Chinese AI couldn't come anywhere near that of the United States. Fast track to 2018, and you'll see that we're neck to neck with the Chinese. What happened to the huge tech gap??? If I recall back in the mid 2000s, many in the States still thought of China as a land full of poor peasants and dirty factories. Now, very few of us would think of China in that light ... and it has become inevitable that they will surpass us in certain sectors. And judging by recent Trump actions with NAFTA and the EU, I feel we are the one's who will get further and further behind the Chinese in not only AI, but also other sectors. Not trying to be a pessimist here ... just a realist.

OOO the closet Indian again. . Alibaba beat Microsoft to it... do you understand the first to be above the average human in speech recognition. Just accept it.

I don't think F-22 raptor is an Indian. IMO, he is just one of the many misinformed Americans in this country ... and I don't fault him for that given the current state of news media (Fox, Breitbart, CNN). If you ever come to the United States and watch politics for 30 seconds, you can grasp the state of this country.

 

[52051]

Althrough many indians are loving to be false-flagger all over the internet, mainly due to their trolling/cowardice nature and inferiority complexity, but I dont think that F-22 boy is of indian origin.

To me, he just talk like the average dotard americans, and it is a little bit annoyed to accuse every trolls here are of indian origin, there are trolls who are definitely from other countries, and IMVHO, F-22 is one of them.

The thing very unique about the american trolls are they are very confident about their retarded opinions, even after debunked again and again, with all eggs on face.

Thats the unique character of american dotard trolls, thats why I think F-22 is not an indian, in contracts indian trolls, when confront with their retarded opinions, will try to shift topics elsewhere to the point it become ridiculus and irrelevant, so basically they have different kinds of stupidities.

 

[Beast]

You mean Chinese that are working for the American company Microsoft and contributing to its advances.

Chinese are always spy and evil in the eyes of American. Soon American will sack him and the Chinese will rejoin the motherland. Fancy you white American trust a Chinese to lead whiteman technology.

 

[TaiShang]

Alibaba's AI beats humans in reading test
Xinhua, January 16, 2018

Artificial intelligence programs built by China's e-commerce titan Alibaba scored better than humans on a Stanford University reading and comprehension test.


"This is the first time that a machine has outperformed humans on such a test," Alibaba said in a statement on Monday.


The test was designed by artificial intelligence experts at Stanford to measure computers' growing reading abilities. Alibaba's software was the first to beat the human race.


Luo Si, chief scientist for natural language processing at Alibaba's AI research arm, called the milestone "a great honor," but also acknowledged that it is likely to lead to a significant number of workers losing their jobs to machines.


The technology "can be gradually applied to numerous applications such as customer service, museum tutorials and online responses to medical inquiries from patients, decreasing the need for human input in an unprecedented way," Si said in a statement.


Alibaba has already employed the underlying technology in its November 11 shopping festival over the years, using computers to answer a large number of customer service questions, the company said.


Pranav Rajpurkar, one of the Stanford researchers who developed the reading test, said in a tweet that Alibaba's feat is "a great start to 2018" for artificial intelligence.


Based on more than 500 Wikipedia articles, the Stanford quiz asks the AI to provide exact answers to more than 100,000 questions, testing its ability to process large amounts of information before supplying precise answers to queries. It is considered one of the world's most authoritative machine-reading gauges and has previously attracted companies such as Google, Facebook, IBM, Tencent and Samsung.


The deep neural network model developed by Alibaba scored 82.44 on the test last week, narrowly beating the 82.304 achieved by human participants. A day later, Microsoft's AI software scored 82.650 on the same test.


"That means objective questions such as 'what causes rain' can now be answered with high accuracy by machines," Si said.


China's technology firms Tencent and Baidu are also competing to develop AI that can enrich social media feeds, target ads and services or even aid autonomous driving.


China has stressed innovation in its 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-2020), with an aim to become an "innovation nation" by 2020, an international leader in innovation by 2030, and a world powerhouse in scientific and technological innovation by 2050.

http://www.china.org.cn/business/2018-01/16/content_50232029.htm

 

[cirr]

Robo-helpers are being added to bank staff

2018-01-17 13:49 Global Times Editor: Li Yan

Upgraded bank robots with more human-like features have already hit the market in China. (Photo/Courtesy of Guo Hongguang)

For many, the experience of queuing up in a bank waiting for service is anything but entertaining. But that is no longer the case for Mrs Liu, a Beijing local in her 50s, as she has recently picked up a new interest when she goes to the bank in her community on Lincui Lu, Chaoyang district - chatting with a little robot named Jiaojiao.

"I have never talked to a robot before. It is so much cuter and more intelligent than I expected," laughed Liu, after being told how to apply for a credit card and asked for a hug by the robot.

The one-meter tall robot, Jiaojiao, has been working as a lobby manager assistant at a local branch of Bank of Communications for months.

Her daily work is to greet guests and offer inquiry services and customer guidance.

With a child-like voice and a unique sense of humor, it has won many customers' hearts.

Jiaojiao is the first robot introduced by Chinese banks, followed by a series of other robots since 2015.

As AI technology penetrates every aspect of the finance sector, robots have become a new force in the service team and now, almost every big bank in China has its own robot team member, such as "Ying Ying" for Bank of China, "Xiao Long Ren" (Little Dragon Man) for China Construction Bank and "One" and "Xiao Min" for China Minsheng Bank.

As technology advances and the robots' systems and "intelligence" upgrade, the robots are bringing more fun and efficiency to the public.

Having fun at the bank

"Hi, I want to have a pancake. Can you help?"

"Wow, you got me. I have never had any food before. All I have is electricity; would you like me to share some?"

A burst of laughter fills the room.

Liu and another customer are playing with the robot while they wait in the lobby. Talking with Jiaojiao, Liu feels the time she spends at the bank is full of fun.

"The robot helps relieve pressure and anxiety for customers while they wait, especially when the queue is long," said Yang Meng, vice manager of the Lincui Lu sub-branch of the Bank of Communications. Rather than turning to consultant services, people are more interested in chatting and playing with the robot, Yang said.

Sometimes Jiaojiao will also move to the waiting area to entertain others when there are many people there. Apart from talking, the robot can also sing and perform some dance moves. Meanwhile, Jiaojiao also adds fun and pleasure to the staff's working routine. The robot will move to the recharging area automatically at noon and after getting off work. Those are the times when it often acts like a spoiled child.

"Hi, beautiful sister, I walk too slowly; would you please carry me over there?" "Hi sister, I am too tired; would you please hug me?" These are some sentences it often says to the staff on the way to the charging spot, and it is hard to say no to its cute requests, said Yang.

Invisible robots improves efficiency

In fact, the "robot bank force" is not only at reception, it also works behind different platforms such as WeChat, apps, web-pages and phone calls.

"The software is more or less the same, but they are at different ports. For example, when you are calling customer service, you are likely talking to an AI program or an AI robot," said Guo Hongguang, CTO of Internet marketing department of China M-World, a high-tech company that develops bank robots.

He said invisible robots have greatly improved bank efficiency over the years, even without the customers' awareness.

His opinion echoes the example of "Gong Xiao Zhi," the invisible customer service robot of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC).

According to ICBC's press release, the online robot offers more than 570,000 services on average per day through 15 different channels, including phone message, the mobile banking app and WeChat bank, which greatly boosts the efficiency of finance services.

Since its launch in 2016, Gong Xiao Zhi has served customers more than 170 million times. To further gain customers' favor, the bank also embodies the robot with a red and white mascot-like image.

"In fact, the invisible robots, or programs, bring higher efficiency with a lower cost compared to physical robots," said Wang Feng (pseudonym), a senior industry professional at a large bank in China. "A physical robot costs around 100,000 yuan ($15,540) to 200,000 yuan, but the real benefit it creates for the store is unclear so far," he said.

Disputes on physical robots

Wang also points out the current technological difficulty for physical robots in terms of hearing people's voices.

"It's hard to pick up one particular voice very quickly and precisely, especially in a noisy place like a bank lobby. That's the biggest challenge for many physical bank robots at the moment," said Wang. And the considerable cost for further maintenance also puts a physical robot at a disadvantaged position in the market.

"The relevant technology is not that mature yet," Wang said. He believes "abstract robots," AI programs attached to digital devices, will work better in the long run. He thinks "digital banks" will be the future, replacing physical stores and creating more individualized financial services based on a personal data pool.

Meanwhile, there are also disputes online as to how intelligent a bank robot really is, with many wondering if there is a human staff member operating in the background to ensure the robot's performance. The related questions and posts can be commonly seen on zhihu.com, a popular Quora-like platform. Regarding the issue, Wang confirmed that certain "manual intervention" is applied at times to boost the robots' intelligence, especially on big occasions like an exhibition.

Irresistible future trend

However, the public still holds a high expectation on bank robots and banks are working hard to enhance the integration of AI technology with their finance services. A new wave of technological development and product upgrading is in progress. Earlier this month, Bank of China launched its first e-finance specification branch in Hunan Province, with a series of cutting-edge high-tech equipment being introduced to the public for the first time, including a robot, according to a xinhuanet.com report.

"It is an irresistible trend, and I have strong faith in physical bank robots. I don't think physical stores will be replaced, but 'unmanned banks' where only robots and machines serve the customers will appear in the near future, say in 5 to 10 years," said Guo.

He analyzes that people's habits for receiving service will not change dramatically and direct and in-person service will still be in demand despite digital service developments and that is why physical, human-like robots matter.

He indicates that the relevant industry is developing quickly and the key hindrance for the robots' popularization lies in banks themselves, rather than technology.

"It depends on how much determination they put on self-revolution. It takes money and time," said Guo.

Both Wang and Guo believe that a change in the workforce structure within banks and the finance structure as a whole will surely come soon.

"Robots will take over many jobs that are traditionally done by people, but the new mode of service will create new jobs in other fields like IT and machine maintenance positions. Overall employment won't shrink," said Wang.

http://www.ecns.cn/2018/01-17/288787.shtml

 

[cirr]

China to hold international AI competition

2018-01-22 00:45 Xinhua Editor: Wang Fan

China will hold an international artificial intelligence (AI) competition in February this year, with prize money totalling 5 million yuan (about 781,000 U.S. dollars), the organizer said Sunday.

The competition, organized by the committee of the China International Big Data Industry Expo 2018, will include six selection trials in China, the United States and Israel. The semifinal and grand final will take place in late May in Guiyang, capital of southwest China's Guizhou Province.

Registration for the competition will open on Feb. 10.

Besides the cash prize, winners' products will be exhibited at the expo as well as on its official website, according to the committee.

Winning projects may also receive preferential industrial policies, venture funds and free access of platform and data resources, among other benefits, it added.

The China International Big Data Industry Expo is aimed at providing exchange and sharing platforms for experts, enterprises, institutions and entrepreneurs. It is the world's first big data-themed expo, and has been held annually in Guiyang since 2015.

http://www.ecns.cn/2018/01-22/289316.shtml