China has the first virtual student, learning by AI technology

A Tsinghua University professor said that a new virtual student applying artificial intelligence at the school can reach the cognitive level of a 12-year-old in just one year.

One of China's elite universities has just welcomed a very special new student, because this female student is virtual and uses artificial intelligence to study.

Dubbed Hua Zhibing, the virtual student is studying at Tsinghua University's computer science and technology department. Here she will study under the guidance of a professor. Hua is the first artificial intelligence student to attend college, and Hua started admission on Tuesday and will begin taking courses related to technology and data.

Hua is the result of training from the non-profit research institute Beijing Institute of Artificial Intelligence and technology companies such as Zhipu.AI and Xiaoice.

Hua Zhibing - virtual student studying at Tsinghua University.

The Chinese government has long formulated an ambitious vision for the field of AI. The country has an ambitious target of achieving a "major breakthrough" in the fundamental theory of artificial intelligence by 2025.

Officials hope the technology will become a driving force in the country's economic transformation and industrial capacity upgrading.

In recent years, China has increasingly adopted artificial intelligence in areas, including healthcare and education, although the increasing use of facial recognition technology has raised concerns. about privacy. Meanwhile, companies are using AI to develop anything from apps that save local dialects to self-driving cars… and even chat bots.

According to Tang Jie, a computer science professor who is teaching AI students, Hua was able to write poetry, draw pictures, and even possess a little musical talent. This virtual student also has reasoning and emotional abilities, which sets her apart from other virtual characters thanks to a pre-trained machine learning model.

"In the next year, she could reach the level of awareness of a 12-year-old child," Tang told the media . Peng Shuang, co-founder of the chat bot Xiaoice, hopes Hua will be able to act less like a robot and improve to become more like a human in the future.

A computer science student at Tsinghua University told Sixth Tone magazine that most of the students at the school did not know this AI student because the university did not introduce her to the public.