Bilingual AI toy to debut in South Korea
But IBM and Korean tech firm won’t confirm whether a prototype has already been made
By Kim Tae-gyu
Korean children will be able to play with internet-connected smart toys, which will be able to have interactive conversations in Korean, in the not-so-distant future.
South Korean IT firm SK C&C and IBM have joined hands to capitalise on a variety of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, which include a toy powered by the super computing system IBM Watson.
The robot is expected to speak both English and Korean. For example, it can read an English-language book so that the two can talk about the book later in Korean. Or, they can just chat like friends.
Some believe that the two companies already created a prototype to test the bilingual miniature robot but SK C&C refused to confirm this, just saying “We have carried out various joint projects with IBM.”
An IBM Korea official also did not comment.
It is not known when the model will hit the market and how much it would cost but an SK C&C official dropped a hint, “Watson is currently learning Korean. As far as I know, the study will continue to next year.”