Homegrown AI to be Pitted against Humans on EBS Quiz Show
Homegrown AI to be Pitted against Humans on EBS Quiz Show
  • By Oh Hae-young (info@koreaittimes.com)
  • 승인 2016.04.01 11:48
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Park Young-taek, Professor of computer science at Soongsil University

ETRI’s exobrain will face off against human contestants on a televised quiz show in October. This time, it is a quiz show. As we leave the historic Lee Sedol and AlphaGo Go match behind, a human vs. AI quiz show is now in the wings to rekindle the AI craze. On top of that, this time, the machine is homegrown, not foreign-made.

The Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) is currently working on an exobrain project. ETRI’s Exobrain is artificial intelligence (AI) armed with tremendous amounts of data, which can understand human language and answer simple knowledge questions, as well as sophisticated questions. The South Korean government has been annually investing 8 billion won in AI since 2013 and will continue to do so by 2023. ETRI’s exobrain will make its debut on the EBS Scholarship Quiz Show in October.

The difference between AlphaGo and ETRI’s exobrain is their understanding of natural human languages. AlphaGo knows all the rules of the ancient board game Go while ETRI’s exobrain has to come to grips with natural language. What’s more, while AlphGo needed its human avatar during the matches, ETRI’s exobrain will not require its body double. It will answer questions directly.

Park Young-taek -- Professor of computer science at Soongsil University and Head of the AI research group at the Korean Institute of Information Scientists and Engineers-- is participating in the exobrain project.  

“The highly publicized faceoff between World Go champion Lee Sedol and AlphaGo is fading away in our memories. The scheduled machine vs. human quiz show will be much more interesting.” Professor Park said.

For example, if the quiz show host asks: “Who raised an army in Jeolla Province during Japanese Invasion of Korea in 1592 ETRI’s exobrain will answer, “General Kwak Jae-woo.” Natural language understanding is different from frequency-based voice recognition; the former is way more sophisticated than the latter.

In 2011, IBM's supercomputer Watson trounced its two competitors on the televised quiz show “Jeopardy!” and received the first place prize. The scheduled faceoff between human vs. ETRI’s exobrain is modeled on the famous match.   

It took a decade for Watson to make a debut while ETRI’s exobrain is preparing for its debut after less than 3 years of development. Thus, scientific communities in and outside the country are eyeing ETRI’s exobrain.

ETRI is said to expect its exobrain to beat human contestants even though the EBS Scholarship Quiz Show in October is projected to be tougher than “Jeopardy!.” Then, why the South Korean government is intent on developing AI

“AI is software, but Watson was developed by computer hardware giant IBM,” Park said.

IBM unveiled Watson because securing first-mover advantages leads to market dominance in the software market. By combing software with its hardware strength, IBM probably wanted to show off its strength in the field of AI. With Watson, IBM successfully projected itself as a hardware and software giant. 

In terms of ICT hardware, South Korea is the envy of the world. However, when it comes to software, South Korea is trailing badly. We are living in the era of convergence. Software and hardware are inseparable. When we excel in both software and hardware, we can move forward. Motivated by the performance of Watson, the South Korea government rolled up its sleeves to develop AI.

ETRI has decided to take the wraps off its exobrain on a televised quiz show to take advantage of media coverage. Google's AlphaGo publicity stunt resulted in its market cap surging 58 trillion won.

“IBM leveraged mass media coverage in promoting Watson. Google followed suit in  marketing AlphaGo. The public got to know about Watson thanks to its victory over human contestants on Jeopardy! Viewers were shocked to see what AI was capable of,” he added.

Before Watson’s appearance on Jeopardy!, IBM was viewed as a producer of super computers for companies. IBM's Watson publicity stunt proved to be successful: it helped IBM position itself as the leader in AI.

Professor Park said that ETRI’s exobrain will make a successful debut. “As a matter of fact, the game Go is popular only in three Far East Asian countries - Korea, China and Japan.

Thus, the Lee Sedol vs. AlphaGo match can be described as a tempest in a teapot in some respects. Westerners are not familiar with Go. On the other hand, Jeopardy! is the US’s favorite quiz show loved by viewers of all ages, so Watson’s appearance on the show made a big impact on viewers.”


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