Virtual Student Enrolled at Tsinghua University
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The screenshot shows China’s first home-made virtual student "Hua Zhibing" walks into the Department of Computer Science and Technology, Tsinghua University. (Photo/China News Service)
China launched its first home-made virtual student "Hua Zhibing" at Zhongguancun Science Park in Beijing on Tuesday.
Developed by a joint team consisting of Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence (BAAI), Zhipu.AI and Microsoft's AI, XiaoIce, Hua Zhibing was unveiled at the 2021 BAAI Conference.
With an image of a young lady, Hua was designed with human faces and voices along with a specific personality.
Having strong interest in fine arts and literature, she can compose tunes, write poems and draw pictures.
A curious talent, Hua was enrolled at Tsinghua University and became a student of Professor Tang Jie, director of Tsinghua-CAE Joint Research Center for Knowledge & Intelligence.
Tsinghua University has a profound history of computer science and technology.
On Thursday she opened an account on China's Twitter-like Sina Weibo platform.
In the first Weibo post, Hua Zhibing greeted Chinese netizens and said that she will start studying in the computer laboratory in Tsinghua University.
Hua Zhibing attracted close to 2,000 followers on Weibo in about nine hours.
A video introducing Hua Zhibing was published in her first Weibo post. In it, a young girl wanders around the campus while a female voice introduces herself.
"I've been addicted to literature and art since I was born. The scientists not only gave me my appearance and my voice but also taught me to compose," Hua Zhibing said, noting that the background music in the video was composed by her.
The girl in the video was a real person but the face and voice were virtually synthesized, Tang Jie, a professor at the Department of Computer Science of Tsinghua University, one of the major developers of Hua Zhibing, said during a forum on artificial intelligence held between Tuesday and Thursday in Beijing.
Hua Zhibing officially registered and became a student of Tsinghua University on Tuesday. Developers said at the forum that they have high expectations for Hua Zhibing, hoping she can keep learning, exploring and cultivating the abilities of creativity and communication in the future. She might also be employed after graduating from the university, developers said.
Hua Zhibing was based on the latest version of a China-developed deep learning model, Wudao 2.0, which literally means "understanding of natural laws." It can process 1.75 trillion parameters, breaking the record of 1.6 trillion previously set by Google's Switch Transformer AI language model.
The appearance of Hua Zhibing soon became a hot topic on Weibo.
Some are amazed by how China has advanced in the field of artificial intelligence. Some netizens said they were curious whether scientists would create a humanoid robot named Hua Zhibing, rather than a virtual face and voice.
Some joked that if more robots like Hua Zhibing, which can learn and work, are created in the future, population decline would not be a problem in the world.
Source: ecns, TheGlobalTimes
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