Her A talking phone may have arrived – she speaks Chinese
The company behind TikTok is releasing an AI smartphone assistant that behaves less like an app and more like a secretary.
A 3D mobile phone display can be seen at Nubia Global's booth at SNIEC in Shanghai, China on June 26, 2024, during the opening of Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2024.
NurPhoto/author via Getty Images
Chinese tech giant ByteDance on Monday launched an artificial intelligence voice assistant for smartphones that can act autonomously on behalf of the user.
Assistant powered by Doubao from ByteDance large language modelreminds AI at the center of the film Herin which the main character falls in love voice on your phone.
AI can open tabs, book flights, and search for information on your phone. It will be available on the M153 Nubia phone, but only in limited quantities. According to the Chinese financial platform, ByteDance plans to license the tool to other Chinese smartphone makers. Eastmoney.
About supporting science journalism
If you enjoyed this article, please consider supporting our award-winning journalism. subscription. By purchasing a subscription, you help ensure a future of influential stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.
Doubao LLM is the most popular AI chatbot in China. Deployed on the phone, it works at the operating system levelallowing AI to see what's happening on the screen and use apps, performing tasks such as retrieving and organizing files, filling out forms, and even suggesting restaurants that match budgets and preferences.
The assistant also has memory, allowing it to store information on the device – appointment notes, addresses, the child's age and preferences – and turn them into reminders or tasks. Users can ask questions such as “Where was I on the train last week?” or “Where was the cafe that I liked near the office?”
It's a step up from older voice assistants like Apple's Siri, which work in a way where responses can suffer from latency and a lack of emotional nuance. In these systems, speech is recorded, converted to text and sent to a server for analysis, and then the response is read aloud using a separate text-to-speech tool. ByteDance's AI, on the other hand, uses a speech-to-speech system that allows for faster responses and even allows the user to interrupt the assistant mid-sentence – much the same way you can interrupt a friend or colleague.
According to Guangdong Yangcheng Evening NewsDubao's updated voice calls are almost “indistinguishable from human ones” when it comes to realism and emotions such as joy and sadness. However, ByteDance cautioned that the technology is still in beta and requires further testing before it is rolled out more widely.
This Her moment of technology and Science fiction enthusiasts have been waiting? IN San FranciscoBeijing, Seoul and Cupertino engineers have the same goal: An AI assistant that listensunderstands and acts without forcing you to think about middleware. ByteDance Doubao phone assistant suggests how fast it is the future is coming.
A similar technology exists in the USA. OpenAI's GPT‑4o, introduced in 2024, also supports real-time conversations, and Google's Gemini Live mode can also offer real-time interruptible voice chats on phones. And AI-powered assistant apps are becoming increasingly effective at tasks such as summarizing calls and emails, translating, booking appointments and composing responses. But the main difference between these features and Doubao is that it is a Chinese-made artificial intelligence, completely built into a Chinese-made smartphone, specifically for the Chinese market.
It's time to stand up for science
If you liked this article, I would like to ask for your support. Scientific American has been a champion of science and industry for 180 years, and now may be the most critical moment in that two-century history.
I was Scientific American I have been a subscriber since I was 12, and it has helped shape my view of the world. science always educates and delights me, instills a sense of awe in front of our vast and beautiful universe. I hope it does the same for you.
If you subscribe to Scientific Americanyou help ensure our coverage focuses on meaningful research and discovery; that we have the resources to report on decisions that threaten laboratories across the US; and that we support both aspiring and working scientists at a time when the value of science itself too often goes unrecognized.
In return you receive important news, fascinating podcastsbrilliant infographics, newsletters you can't missmust-watch videos challenging gamesand the world's best scientific articles and reporting. You can even give someone a subscription.
There has never been a more important time for us to stand up and show why science matters. I hope you will support us in this mission.
