You don’t need to be embarrassed about reading Mills & Boon; Google’s AI engine is reading a whopping 2,865 romance titles to be more conversational.
The defining trait of many digital assistants and bots in 2016 is their strict, laconic language. Google’s not a fan of that, and has committed their AI engine to reading 2,865 romance titles to help it become more conversational.
With luck, that won’t amount to an AI that declares its love for us in grandiose gestures, and what we should see are future bots and intelligent assistants in the vein of Google Now that can offer convincing conversation.
Read: Google CEO outlines his vision for artificial intelligence
Andrew Dai, the head of Google’s AI engine project, stated to The Verge that “It would be much more satisfying to ask Google questions if it really understood the nuances of what you were asking for, and could reply in a more natural and familiar way.”
The premise behind offering romance titles to an AI engine is that most go Google’s products rely on the capability of a computer to respond to human input, and so by feeding the engine romance titles, the engine can have a reference as to the style and vocabulary of normal human interaction.
Jason Freidenfelds, a senior communications manager at Google, cited that while children’s books might seem the obvious choice to teach an AI to read, romance novels follow similar plot lines but use a wider and more complex vernacular.
Dai cites that the end goal of the exercise is to see Google’s AI engine become more conversational – the first instance of where we might see an improvement is Google Inbox’s Smart Reply capabilities.
Read: Top 5: Google IO Predictions
What are your thoughts on Google’s AI engine reading up on romance novels? Be sure to let us know in the comments below!
Follow Bryan Smith on Twitter: @bryansmithSA
Source: The Verge
