A simple conversation could be worth $1M
Amazon offers prize to team that can build and AI capable of chatting for 20 minutes
SAN FRANCISCO— Amazon is offering $1 million (U.S.) to the university team that builds an artificial intelligence that can keep up its side of a conversation with a human being for 20 minutes.
On Thursday, Amazon announced the Alexa Prize, a $1-million award for the creation of a conversational artificial intelligence that can communicate with people “coherently and engagingly.”
Such a system would be unprecedented “and at least five times more advanced than state-of-the-art conversational AI,” said Rohit Prasad, vice-president and head scientist of Amazon Alexa.
To aid in the endeavour, up to 10 teams will get a $100,000-stipend from Amazon, along with Alexa-enabled devices, free cloud computing and support from Amazon’s Alexa team.
Amazon hopes the prize will lead to scientific breakthroughs in conversational AI, especially helping computers learn, understand, communicate and engage in “common-sense reasoning,” the company said.
The push comes as Amazon’s digital assistant Alexa is coming to many platforms, beyond its home on Amazon’s Echo speaker, and as artificial intelligence is anticipated to become the cutting edge of tech companies’ interfaces with their customers.
If no team meets the admittedly high bar, the team with the best performing “socialbot” will win $500,000.
The Alexa Prize announcement comes the same day several of the world’s largest tech companies announced the formation of a consortium aimed at fostering the promise of artificial intelligence.
Microsoft, Amazon, IBM, Google and Facebook have formed the Partnership on Artificial Intelligence to Benefit People and Society.