How working over continents and time zones formed the Samsung European heart for AI language growth
As Samsung continues to pioneer premium cellular AI experiences, we go to Samsung Analysis facilities all over the world to learn the way Galaxy AI is enabling extra customers to maximise their potential. Galaxy AI now helps 16 languages, so extra individuals can increase their language capabilities, even when offline, because of on-device translation in options resembling Dwell Translate, Interpreter, Observe Help and Shopping Help. However what does AI language growth contain? Final time, we visited India to learn the way groups collaborate with college students and universities to carry Galaxy AI to extra individuals. This time, we’re in Poland to find how European nations collaborate to perform their objective.
There’s a saying on the Samsung R&D Institute Poland (SRPOL): “A day at SRPOL lasts 96 hours”. It refers back to the heart’s world function as one of many largest and fastest-growing R&D facilities within the area, usually working throughout 4 completely different time zones. Sitting on the coronary heart of Europe whereas masking many European and world markets, SRPOL has labored on automated speech recognition, neural machine translation and text-to-speech fashions for greater than 30 languages. When it got here to bringing 10 languages to Galaxy AI, this experience meant the staff was nicely suited to seamlessly mix cultural views with Samsung’s world expertise.
SRPOL has years of expertise in Pure Language Processing. What makes it distinctive is its adaptability to work on any language because of the passionate staff and their instruments, resembling a crowdsourcing platform that permits quick and agile growth.
“Collaboration throughout the continent means relentless knowledge assortment, annotation and analysis, which has grow to be one thing we actually take pleasure in,” says Kornel Jankowski, Head of Speech Decoding at SRPOL. “We’ve handled so many languages that our staff developed common, language-agnostic expertise. Once we’re requested to help a brand new language mannequin, all people’s angle is: Oh wow, we get to be taught one other one, that’s going to be enjoyable!”
A European Middle for AI Language Improvement
Language is a cornerstone of tradition and communication throughout Europe no matter whether or not it’s included into expertise. Nevertheless, it presents distinctive challenges for the staff at SRPOL, who develop AI fashions for European languages.
“Every language and the tradition that it’s a part of, comes with hurdles that make us reevaluate how we understand a selected challenge,” explains Adam Ros, Head of Synthetic Intelligence at SRPOL. These hurdles embody navigating the untranslatability of sure phrases and dealing with idiomatic expressions that won’t have direct equivalents in different languages.
The staff noticed these challenges as a possibility to make SRPOL a European heart for AI language growth. The most important advantage of that is that it shortens the communication path between completely different departments and crucially, the decision-making path. Whether or not it’s a matter of automated speech recognition, neural machine translation or text-to-speech, groups might merely stroll over to colleagues in Cellular High quality Assurance and effectively remedy issues collectively.
Whereas this has helped, it hasn’t overcome all AI challenges. Inevitably, there are limitations in AI fashions when coping with a number of European languages, resembling translating with out context or variations in intonation. Nevertheless, the staff noticed these as a possibility to continue learning and innovating.
“My staff by no means stops at only one instance when dealing with a brand new phrase or matter. Some European languages are tougher than others,” provides Ros. In case you’ve ever been to Spain, you already know that Spanish is commonly spoken at blazing-fast speeds and we have to prepare AI nicely to deal with that.”
Galaxy AI’s enlargement required novel cross-continent collaboration, however the work quickly grew past European borders. SRPOL supported the Jordan staff’s efforts to show Galaxy AI Arabic’s myriad of dialects, in addition to the Brazil staff’s work on Latin American languages.
The significance of language and cultural distinction subtleties are all on the radar of SRPOL product builders as a result of they will all be observed by the goal — the tip customers.
“There are delicate variations between European cultures that influence whether or not one thing feels pure to the tip consumer. For instance, individuals in some nations count on to learn costs with the euro image (€), whereas others are accustomed to seeing it spelled out, e-u-r-o-s,” says Agata Maria Rozycka, Head of Voice Intelligence Analysis at SRPOL. “If this cultural nuance is just not mirrored translated textual content, the interface might sound much less intuitive to a consumer. Implementing these micro-level insights into interface design could make expertise really feel extra pure throughout numerous cultures.”
“The staff has been remotely speaking and collaborating throughout completely different nations for a few years, increase quite a few efficient communication channels,” says Marcin Mrugala, Head of Cellular High quality Assurance at SRPOL. “We have been able to do our half in enabling Galaxy AI to decrease language obstacles all over the world.”
Expertise for Bridging Cultures
Managing and integrating numerous linguistic and cultural insights is a difficult activity, however it’s important for Samsung’s imaginative and prescient for Galaxy AI — reducing the obstacles that divide individuals based mostly on language and tradition, and enabling them to create deeper connections.
“We’re not simply constructing expertise of the longer term, we’re constructing groups of the longer term too. Our greatest practices are designed to refine merchandise based mostly on variations throughout nations, however we essentially imagine our similarities far outweigh our variations and our expertise can unite cultures,” says Mrugala.
“Our objective is to carry individuals collectively, to make their lives simpler, and to simplify their each day duties. We’re seeing our households utilizing the Voice Recorder in new methods, and we will now name our buddies and completely different nations and discuss with them in their very own language. It’s magical to see this modification on the earth and to be a part of it. Galaxy AI introduced SRPOL individuals collectively and now we’re bringing collectively the world,” concludes Rozycka.
