Alice became even smarter: Yandex added a new neural network YandexGPT

On May 17, 2023, Yandex added a new-generation neural network called YandexGPT (YaGPT) to its virtual assistant Alice. According to the developers, thanks to this neural network, Alice can now create texts and suggest ideas almost as well as an expert in a certain topic.

The new option is already available in the Yandex app, in Yandex Browser, in Yandex Stations and in smart TVs with Alice. To activate the option of text generation with the help of the YandexGPT neural network, it is enough to say "Alice, let's think of something!" and set the assistant different tasks.

Now "Alice" can help write a script for graduation, compose a business letter, suggest a travel plan or options for a wedding gift. The developers note that while this technology is still in testing mode and "Alice" can be wrong about facts, but this does not prevent it from creating something new with the help of its erudition and ability to draw conclusions.

The YandexGPT neural network embedded in Alice was trained on Yandex supercomputers in two stages. First, it was shown publicly available texts, such as content from books, websites and articles, selected using the company's search technology, which finds the most useful documents among the billions available. Unlike previous language models, the YandexGPT neural network was pre-trained on hundreds of thousands of meaningful and well-written answers. This allowed it to answer questions as simply and understandably as a knowledgeable human would. To collect and prepare such examples, Yandex used its crowdsourcing technologies and a team of AI trainers.

"Today's launch is the first step. The neural network is constantly learning, so Alice will get smarter every day. For example, it currently answers questions without considering the context of the conversation, but in the future it will learn to take context into account. "Yandex plans to introduce next-generation neural networks in its other products, primarily in search," Yandex told Hubre.