Shulou(Shulou.com)06/02 Report--

2019-09-02 21:18 Source: thepaper.cn

If you take out your mobile phone and take a picture of your favorite goods, you can retrieve the corresponding goods and information on the e-commerce App and easily complete the follow-up order steps. Behind this scene, artificial intelligence technologies such as image recognition are playing a role.

On August 31, during the 2019 World artificial Intelligence Congress, Zhou Bowen, vice president of JD.com Group and president of JD.com 's artificial intelligence division, said in an interview with thepaper.cn that since leading the establishment of JD.com 's artificial intelligence team in 2017, the algorithm of "photo buying" has been improved. during the 2019 period, the transaction amount brought by "photo buying" has increased 12 times compared with the same period last year. "behind this means an increase in the accuracy of 'photo shopping'."

Prior to joining JD.com, Zhou Bowen worked at IBM headquarters in New York, serving as director of IBM Research artificial Intelligence basic Research Institute (AI Foundations), chief scientist of IBM Watson (Watson) Group, and IBM Distinguished engineer, responsible for the global strategy and implementation of IBM basic research in artificial intelligence and deep learning. In 2017, Zhou Bowen became vice president of JD.com Group, reporting to Liu Qiangdong, Chairman and CEO of JD.com Group.

In an interview with the media, including thepaper.cn, Zhou Bowen introduced the development of JD.com 's artificial intelligence and his personal thoughts on artificial intelligence talents and applications.

Zhou Bowen, vice president of JD.com Group and president of JD.com 's artificial intelligence division.

JD.com 's artificial Intelligence

JD.com 's artificial intelligence development path pays attention to application landing. As Shen Nanpeng, global managing partner of Sequoia Capital, said at the 2019 World artificial Intelligence Conference, "artificial intelligence needs to look at the 'sea of stars' of technological breakthroughs." but what's more, it needs to get into the 'thick soil' of industry applications. "

Zhou Bowen began to set up JD.com artificial Intelligence Research Institute in 2017, hoping to conduct research and development around applications and business scenarios, settle down the common problems of different business units, and launch reusable technologies. In 2019, JD.com artificial Intelligence Research Institute was upgraded to an independent BU, parallel to JD.com Retail, JD.com Logistics, JD.com Mathematical Science, etc.

JD.com 's artificial intelligence team is also gradually expanding. At the 2019 World artificial Intelligence Congress, JD.com announced the establishment of JD.com (Shanghai) Innovation Center in Lingang New area of Shanghai Free Trade Zone. JD.com artificial Intelligence (Shanghai) Innovation Center will be built with the implementation path of "2x3". "2" refers to the construction of two major technology carriers, JD.com artificial intelligence Shanghai intelligence platform and JD.com artificial intelligence Shanghai C2B service platform. "3" refers to the construction of three physical spaces, JD.com artificial Intelligence Shanghai Accelerator Space, JD.com artificial Intelligence Shanghai R & D Center and JD.com artificial Intelligence Exhibition Hall.

In the future, Zhou Bowen hopes that JD.com 's artificial intelligence technology will be opened to the outside world. For this reason, JD.com set up the NeuHub JD.com artificial intelligence open platform. Up to now, Neuhub has been invoked within JD.com more than 2 billion times a day.

The capabilities and services provided by JD.com AI

Zhou Bowen divides the AI capability of JD.com 's artificial intelligence open platform Neuhub into three layers.

One is the basic ability layer of artificial intelligence. Including six areas of basic capabilities of API openness and SKD, such as speech recognition, natural language understanding, commodity recognition, data tagging and so on. In the field of image recognition, Zhou Bowen said that "JD.com wants to be the best commodity recognition system in the world."

The second is the application layer. JD.com 's artificial intelligence can provide Saas-based solutions that integrate end-to-end capabilities into user-oriented systems in a modular way. Take the offline pedestrian flow statistics service of retail stores as an example, which combines face recognition, thermal map analysis, membership services, interactive capabilities, and so on. Third parties can embed these "artificial intelligence components" into the solution.

The third is the solution of the integration of software and hardware for external output. For example, the "intelligent settlement desk" launched by JD.com AI and Hong Kong Fung's Retail Group has been applied in Feng's retail's Circle K stores. When consumers place multiple items on the intelligent settlement desk at the same time, they can get all the goods and price information and complete the payment.

The development of artificial intelligence needs two kinds of talents.

As for the development of artificial intelligence technology in the field of e-commerce, Zhou Bowen believes that domestic leading enterprises do not lag behind other enterprises in the world in terms of application. " When I returned home, I found that the user group in China has a typical characteristic, which is more willing to try new technologies than those in Europe and the United States. This is very good information for our enterprise, we have a lot of technology can be applied soon, so the speed of technology iteration in China is faster than that in the United States. " Zhou Bowen said.

"what we need to do better is the application of original ideas. Can you have a better imagination, a more forward-looking vision, and do something that seems unlikely to succeed at present, but is willing to invest in it?" Zhou Bowen said.

On the issue of artificial intelligence personnel training, Zhou Bowen told thepaper.cn that the shortage of artificial intelligence talents is "worldwide, and there is a shortage of many talents."

According to Zhou Bowen, on the one hand, there is a lack of talents who can make breakthroughs in basic algorithms. "like this kind of deep neural network, the collection of knowledge representation handled by symbols, and whether the artificial neural network (can) have a better memory. In fact, it is a very difficult problem, and it may also need to be combined with some breakthroughs in brain science, so I think there is a great shortage of basic technical personnel in this respect."

On the other hand, the development of artificial intelligence also needs compound talents. According to Zhou Bowen, this kind of compound talents refer to those who have the ability to combine technological advances, artificial intelligence platform capabilities and the reality of the industry.

Since the beginning of this year, many colleges and universities have set up "artificial intelligence colleges" or similar majors. Zhou Bowen's view is that the establishment of artificial intelligence colleges reflects the importance attached to this field, but it still needs to see whether "this course can be designed well."

"Curriculum design should pay attention to the training of basic skills, but it is actually quite difficult to see the frontiers of science and technology." "there are different views on whether artificial intelligence learning should be done as an undergraduate or a doctoral student," Zhou said. Personally, I do not want to see a swarm of artificial intelligence colleges, (but) I am very happy to see some forward-looking, clear assurance of technological development, very confident universities to set up artificial intelligence colleges. "

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