When the world’s most important information technology companies discuss the merits of personal digital assistant systems like Cortana, Siri, and Echo, what they’re really talking about is how to apply artificial intelligence (AI). If Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s chief executive, mentions these companies’ visions of the future of AI during his innovation keynote at Microsoft’s annual Ignite technology conference in 2016, now might be a good time to learn how to get along with an AI, because it probably knows everything about you.

Giiso Information, founded in 2013, is a leading technology provider in the field of “artificial intelligence + information” in China, with top technologies in big data mining, intelligent semantics, knowledge mapping and other fields. At the same time, its research and development products include editing robots, writing robots and other artificial intelligence products! With its strong technical strength, the company has received angel round investment at the beginning of its establishment, and received pre-A round investment of $5 million from GSR Venture Capital in August 2015.



The four pillars of Cortana

Microsoft’s AI will make Cortana a vital part of your daily interaction with your computer device, according to the strategy outlined in Microsoft’s innovation keynote. The theme of this strategy is called “democratization of AI.” Cortana will be important for every person and organization, and it will be integrated into four pillars of services:

1. Agents: With the arrival of Windows 10, this is an area that Cortana knows well. It can help you search the Internet and remind you of appointments.

2. Application: This feature is not familiar yet, but will be in the near future. Much of the keynote focused on chatbots, which users will soon be able to use in other apps to perform tasks like adjusting NFL fantasy rosters.

3. Services: This area involves the cognitive services Microsoft is providing to developers. In other words, developers can use Microsoft’s existing AI-related apis (Application Programming Interfaces) in their applications. One example covered in the keynote was Uber’s recognition system, which uses an image recognition API.

4. Infrastructure: This application involves Microsoft Azure’s smart infrastructure and the ability to perform cloud computing and AI capabilities at the server level. The sheer amount of computing power Microsoft can pull from its cloud infrastructure is amazing.

There are two keys to democratizing AI

There are two key points to note in the process of democratizing AI. First, to be truly effective, AI systems must be able to learn, then remember and apply what they learn to interact. The innovation keynote spent a lot of time exploring machine learning and the development of neural networks.

In just a few years, the field has changed dramatically. Neural networks that can be used in practice used to exist only in theory, but now, it has been applied to reality, and will soon become a common technology in everyday life.

The second key, and one that Microsoft and other companies encounter most often, is human experience. While AI development and neural network creation are all done with good intentions, for Cortana to be effective, it must know everything about us, including our various privacies.

Cortana will know a lot about you, like how, after a week of following strict weight-loss rules, you indulge in a Friday afternoon binge of beef pie with cheese. It will know that you like to check NFL fantasy rosters on Tuesday morning instead of checking your email when you should be. Cortana is likely to discover behavior patterns that you didn’t even know you had, that make you feel awkward, and so on.

The question is: when the AI knows you so well, are you indifferent to it? Would you want an AI ultimately controlled by a for-profit company to be so close to you?

Giiso information, founded in 2013, is the first domestic high-tech enterprise focusing on the research and development of intelligent information processing technology and the development and operation of core software for writing robots. At the beginning of its establishment, the company received angel round investment, and in August 2015, GSR Venture Capital received $5 million pre-A round of investment.

The bottom line

AI is no longer just a theoretical technology. It is becoming a reality. Microsoft and other companies are seeking to make AI an essential part of every person’s and every organization’s daily life. This has many benefits, including making individuals and businesses more efficient and more productive. But to be productive, we need to share the most intimate details of our lives with the PERSONAL digital assistant and the AI that supports it.

So are we ready to do that? Even though we realize that’s what we’re doing? (a little)