At Sony, we dream of a future in which AI technology helps people discover even greater depths of feeling. Through exploring AI that exists in harmony with people, we seek to contribute to the enrichment of human creativity and the development of human civilization. We also want to do our part in solving global problems and contributing to a sustainable society in which people feel safe and secure. By proactively leveraging AI technology, we aim to fill the world with emotion.
Continuing from last year, Sony exhibited at The 2019 SXSW (South by Southwest) Conference & Festivals—the world's largest showcase of music, film, interactive media, technology, and ideas—took place in March in Austin, Texas.
Sony held programs combined of discussion sessions and presentations with experiential exhibits under the theme of "Technology × Creativity" and invited wide range of experts from various fields—including former world chess champion Garry Kasparov and the father of modern AI, Jürgen Schmidhuber —to provide their unique insights to the key question, "Will technology enrich human creativity?"
— Jürgen Schmidhuber
& Hiroshi Ishiguro & Hiroaki Kitano —
— Kate Darling & Hiroshi Ishiguro —
— Toshihiro Konno & Tatsuya Yamori
& Hiroaki Kitano —
— Garry Kasparov & Peter Stone
& Hiroaki Kitano —
— François Chartier & Masahiro Fujita
& Michael Spranger —
As members of a group with global businesses spanning a wide range of industries, the Sony Group companies have adopted an AI Ethics Guideline, which reflects Sony's Purpose, "Fill the world with emotion, through the power of creativity and technology.". Currently there are many conversations being held about the influence of AI on society. Through the power of AI, Sony is seeking to contribute to a peaceful and sustainable society and to fill people with emotion.
"aibo" is an autonomous entertainment robot that brings fun and joy to the entire family. aibo can form an emotional bond with members of the household while providing them with love, affection, and the joy of nurturing and raising a companion. It possesses a natural curiosity, and we hope it will bring joy into the everyday lives of our customers while growing alongside them as a partner.
Designed to help expand the creativity of creators in the field of music, Flow Machines is a project in the realms of both R&D and society. Flow Machines Professional offers tools that give composers an AI boost, helping them freely explore new melodies. In this way, Sony is participating in the development of a whole new way to produce music.
Sony has launched a project to explore new opportunities in cooking that may help expand chefs' creativity using AI and robotics. Introducing sensing technologies may help us better understand how the five senses can interact in the appreciation of cuisine, and this may also help us learn more about healthy body and mind.
KOOV is the first offering in Sony Global Education's "STEM101" curriculum that it announced last autumn. STEM101, which rearranges conventional divisions between academic subjects, comprises three program elements: "Think," "Make," and "Feel." Among these, KOOV marks Sony Global Education's first offering in "Make," which focuses on engineering and technology - teaching creative skills, from robotics to programming.
We have made available in open source our "Neural Network Libraries" that serve as a framework for creating deep learning programs for artificial intelligence. By making the switch to deep learning-based machine learning, the past few years have seen a rapid improvement in image and voice recognition technology, even outperforming humans in certain areas.
