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Title | Korea CQ - 'Advancement of Artificial Intelligence Translation ' Special Lecture by Simon Lee, CEO of Flitto | ||||
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Posted by | webmaster | Hit | 134 | Date | 2024.09.20 |
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Dear Korea CQ members, On September 10th, a special
lecture on ‘Advancement of Artificial Intelligence Translation ' by Simon Lee, CEO
of Flitto, was held at the UAE Ambassador's residence.
H.E. Abdulla Saif AI Nuaimi, H.E. Saud Hassan Ali AL Nusuf, H.E. Paul Duclos, Frantz Hotton, Brian Payne, Dr. Saeed AI Dhaheri, Jong-moon Choi, Simon Lee, Hong Mi Kyung Claire, Jackie Son, Kim Kwiyeon, James Park, Ian Jeong, Sobin Kim, Myung Hee Oh, Kevin J. Kimnorage, Younghwan Kim, Choi Jungwha, Didier Beltoise, and Crystal Park attended this forum.
Ambassador Abdulla Saif AI Nuaimi warmly
welcomed everyone, and we then watched a video that introduced the rich culture
of the UAE.
The dinner specially prepared by the ambassador started with soup, followed by a buffet-style main course. There was a variety of options, including hummus, pita bread, various salads, roasted lamb, mahshi, lemon butter shrimp, and even pasta. It was a truly diverse dinner that made for a wonderful evening.
Simon Lee 's lecture on ‘Advancement of
Artificial Intelligence Translation’ started after the dinner. He received the
'Presidential Commendation' for contributions to the development of the
software industry at the 24th Software Industry Day and Flitto was awarded the 'International Startup Award' at GITEX Africa 2024, Africa's Largest ICT
Exhibition.
In this lecture, Flitto's 'Live
Translation' solution, which translates the presenter's voice into text in real
time using sophisticated voice recognition and excellent AI translation
technology, was provided.
After the lecture, attendees enjoyed dessert, during which a lively Q&A session took place thanks to
Flitto's translation technology, allowing participants to input their questions
in their native languages on their phones.
Finally, we enjoyed a time of conversation
while eating fruit in the garden of the UAE Ambassador's residence.
We would like to thank Simon Lee for his
lecture, and H.E. Abdulla Saif AI Nuaimi for his warm hospitality. We'd also
like to thank all members who attended and Crystal Park for her interpretation.
Please click the link below for more
pictures
https://photos.app.goo.gl/zxZ3J8BjGe1DU8Ns7
The Advancement of Artificial Intelligence
Translation – Simon Lee, CEO of Flitto 01. AI vs. Humans (1)
When comparing the accuracy of translations
done by artificial intelligence and those done by humans, it’s clear that human
translations tend to be more accurate. However, I want to emphasize that AI
technology has become quite sophisticated. Just like in the movie Star Trek,
where they use the 'Universal Translator' to communicate with aliens, today we
are leveraging both AI and human assistance to facilitate smooth communication
with foreigners. 02. Limitations of AI Simultaneous Interpretation
The first reason why AI simultaneous interpretation is challenging is due to technological limitations. The process of converting a person's voice into text over the internet and then translating that text into another foreign language heavily relies on network speed. But as you know, internet speeds have greatly improved, which has helped this aspect. The second reason is the diversity of
language forms. There are over 7,000 languages on Earth, each with its own
unique characteristics. For example, in Arabic, the word for 'car' changes depending on whether the speaker is addressing a man or woman. Naturally, AI
translation systems cannot discern who the listener is. The third reason is the complexity of
grammar. Take Korean as an example. Korean sentences can be constructed without
a subject, which means that understanding the context is crucial for predicting
the subject. AI struggles with translating sentences that lack a subject, often
resulting in lower quality translations compared to humans. 03. Flitto's Solution Ultimately, the most important factor is continuously training artificial intelligence with a large amount of data. Without consistently feeding AI with proper nouns as data, we cannot achieve significant advancements. Therefore, I would like to introduce how Flitto collects and trains this data for AI. We gather and refine hard-to-recognize
proper nouns for AI training. For instance, since the AI may struggle to
understand a proper noun like 'Dongdaemun,' we have foreigners record
sentences that include the word 'Dongdaemun.' These recordings are
then used to train the AI. Participants who provide these recordings receive a
small reward, allowing us to quickly accumulate proper noun data for AI
training. 04. AI vs. Humans (2) Returning to the question of whether AI or human interpretation is more accurate, I believe that, for now, humans are still significantly more accurate, and I think this will continue in the future. Professor Choi Jungwha provided interpretation for numerous Presidents. If AI had been used in those situations, many diplomatic issues would have arisen because AI cannot distinguish what should be conveyed and what should not. In other words, the ability to read the room is a uniquely human trait. In the field of simultaneous interpretation, AI will not fully replace humans. People will continue to play a significant role, but we will conduct interpretations with the assistance of AI. In fact, Flitto’s technology has been used in many areas. The Korea Tourism Organization uses our
technology to provide interpretation services for foreign tourists, and Incheon
International Airport is utilizing our services as well. Our technology has
been employed in meetings for Korean public officials, at large conferences
held in Japan recently, and even in discussions between Harold Hamm, a global
tycoon who visited Korea, and the president of Korea University. LG Electronics
uses our technology to communicate with foreign staff at its branches, and it
will also be employed in the upcoming World Knowledge Forum starting tomorrow.
Our technology is set to be used at the upcoming GITEX, Gulf Information
Technology Exhibition in Dubai and at large events in Abu Dhabi. That concludes my presentation. During the
next Q&A session, you can click the question button located at the bottom
right of your phone screen to ask me questions in your native language. If you
have any inquiries, please feel free to use that feature to reach out to me. Q&A 1. Is this service free? There is a free version for individual users, as well as a paid version for government and private enterprises. 2. I’m curious about how the technology works. That's a secret! 3. Based on your experience, what do you
think the accuracy of this technology is? There is a difference in accuracy between
high-resource and low-resource languages. For high-resource languages like
Korean, English, Chinese, and Japanese, the accuracy reaches about 90%, while
for low-resource languages like Mongolian and Vietnamese, it is around 70-80%.
Currently, we provide services in 38 languages. 4. Is real-time translation only provided
in text form, without voice? You can hear the translated text as audio.
If you click the speaker button at the top right of the screen, you will hear
the voice. You can also select different voice types. We are currently
developing technology to make AI voice resemble that of the speaker. In fact,
we have already developed AI that mimics human voices to some extent. But it currently takes about five minutes
to generate the audio from the input. Reducing that time to around ten seconds
is our goal. 5. Do you also store people's voices as
data?
No, we don’t store entire sentences. We
only save the words that our AI can recognize. 6. When you mentioned Professor Choi
Jungwha during the lecture, AI initially recognized it as 'Choi Jung-a' and
later corrected it to 'Choi Jungwha.' How did that happen?
That’s a great question. I trained the AI
before coming here, anticipating that I would mention Professor Choi Jungwha.
The AI recognized my voice and corrected 'Choi Jung-a' to 'Choi Jungwha' based
on that training. 7. Can AI translate figures of speech, like
irony? For example, if we say “Look who showed up on time!” in Korean, when it
actually means the person was late, can it differentiate such expressions?
No, it cannot. Machines struggle to
understand nuances like that, but it’s nearly impossible. 8. Who are Flitto's competitors?
Well, I’m not really sure.
9. How long has the technology been
released? When did Flitto's AI start learning data? We started as a data collection company 12
years ago when the company was founded. At that time, AI existed but wasn’t
really being utilized anywhere. We foresaw the future and collected a large
amount of language data, which we sold to major companies not only in Korea but
also in the United States. 10. You mentioned that your technology is
used at Incheon International Airport. What exactly is the service?
At the airport, we provide location
guidance and other services in multiple languages. For example, if someone
asks, "Where is a nearby halal restaurant?" in Spanish, they will
receive an answer in Spanish. We also provide a QR code that, when scanned,
allows users to view the restaurant's menu. 11. Can AI understand humor?
Humor is cultural. It varies across France,
Korea, and Arab cultures. However, since AI cannot grasp these cultural
nuances, I believe it cannot translate humor effectively. 12. But ChatGPT can create humor when
asked. How is that different?
ChatGPT operates in the realm of generating
humor. In contrast, our company focuses on translating humor that a person
inputs into another language. For example, if I tell a joke in Korean, the
machine would translate it literally into English or Arabic, which could lead
to strange outcomes. Machines cannot comprehend the emotional nuances. Human
interpreters can convey humor cleverly in such cases, but machines cannot learn
that. 13. What about well-known jokes?
Of course, we can incorporate well-known
jokes into the training, but it’s difficult to convey them 100% accurately into another
language. 14. What is the simultaneous interpretation
technology provided by Samsung phones these days?
The AI on Samsung Galaxy devices is good,
but you need to purchase Samsung devices to use it. Since Samsung is a
device-selling company, that service exists only on their products. Our
technology, on the other hand, is software that can be used on various devices,
including phones and tablets. |