How working over continents and time zones formed the Samsung European middle for AI language improvement
As Samsung continues to pioneer premium cell AI experiences, we go to Samsung Analysis facilities all over the world to find out how Galaxy AI is enabling extra customers to maximise their potential. Galaxy AI now helps 16 languages, so extra folks can broaden their language capabilities, even when offline, because of on-device translation in options akin to Dwell Translate, Interpreter, Notice Help and Looking Help. However what does AI language improvement contain? Final time, we visited India to find out how groups collaborate with college students and universities to deliver Galaxy AI to extra folks. This time, we’re in Poland to find how European international locations 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 middle’s world position as one of many largest and fastest-growing R&D facilities within the area, typically working throughout 4 completely different time zones. Sitting on the coronary heart of Europe whereas protecting 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 effectively suited to seamlessly mix cultural views with Samsung’s world know-how.
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, akin to a crowdsourcing platform that permits quick and agile improvement.
“Collaboration throughout the continent means relentless information assortment, annotation and analysis, which has change into 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 abilities. Once we’re requested to help a brand new language mannequin, all people’s perspective is: Oh wow, we get to study one other one, that’s going to be enjoyable!”
A European Heart for AI Language Growth
Language is a cornerstone of tradition and communication throughout Europe no matter whether or not it’s included into know-how. Nonetheless, 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 situation,” explains Adam Ros, Head of Synthetic Intelligence at SRPOL. These hurdles embrace navigating the untranslatability of sure phrases and dealing with idiomatic expressions that will not have direct equivalents in different languages.
The staff noticed these challenges as a chance to make SRPOL a European middle for AI language improvement. The largest 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 may merely stroll over to colleagues in Cellular High quality Assurance and effectively clear up 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, akin to translating with out context or variations in intonation. Nonetheless, the staff noticed these as a chance 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 more durable than others,” provides Ros. When you’ve ever been to Spain, you realize that Spanish is usually spoken at blazing-fast speeds and we have to prepare AI effectively 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, folks in some international locations 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 just isn’t mirrored translated textual content, the interface may appear much less intuitive to a consumer. Implementing these micro-level insights into interface design could make know-how really feel extra pure throughout numerous cultures.”
“The staff has been remotely speaking and collaborating throughout completely different international locations for a few years, build up quite a few efficient communication channels,” says Marcin Mrugala, Head of Cellular High quality Assurance at SRPOL. “We had 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 — decreasing the obstacles that divide folks based mostly on language and tradition, and enabling them to create deeper connections.
“We’re not simply constructing know-how of the long run, we’re constructing groups of the long run too. Our greatest practices are designed to refine merchandise based mostly on variations throughout international locations, however we essentially consider our similarities far outweigh our variations and our know-how can unite cultures,” says Mrugala.
“Our objective is to deliver folks collectively, to make their lives simpler, and to simplify their every day duties. We’re seeing our households utilizing the Voice Recorder in new methods, and we will now name our mates and completely different international locations and speak with them in their very own language. It’s magical to see this alteration on this planet and to be a part of it. Galaxy AI introduced SRPOL folks collectively and now we’re bringing collectively the world,” concludes Rozycka.