Conversational AI is one of the basic types of AI technologies that allows a machine to partake in a dialog with a human using natural language, understand the context, and offer sensible answers. Chatbots that can answer questions by phone, in messenger apps, or on a website, as well as smart speakers, personal assistants like Siri and Google Assistant, and talking robots make use of this technology. As part of the new specialization, ITMO students will develop systems for speech recognition, generation and analysis of noise, and acquire specific knowledge that will let them participate in joint research in collaboration with MTSy and develop various applications for modern AIs – such as dialog assistants, voice command interfaces and knowledge bases.
15 students are expected to take part in the first run of the Conversational AI Technologies specialization. The program is aimed at students with programming experience who are also familiar with the basics of AI. The subjects that they’ll be studying will include automated text analysis, graph knowledge bases, and architecture of dialogue systems. The students will have the opportunity to do internships at the MTS AI Center, as well as write their theses under the guidance of the company’s experts. There will also be an associated laboratory launched on the territory of ITMO University where Master’s students will practice and participate in workshops, meetups, and hackathons alongside with representatives of MTS.
“The solutions created with the help of conversational intelligence technologies have already become a part of our lives. The market for innovative products such as virtual assistants is constantly growing, so now’s the time to invest into the industry’s future experts and therefore provide for its future and our country’s position in the field of AI technologies. MTS is already collaborating with several Russian universities and research centers in various regions, and we are now planning to expand our interaction with educational centers,” comments Arkady Sandler, the head of the company’s AI Center.
“We’ve been successfully collaborating with MTS as part of our research in the field of conversational intelligence for two years already. We now plan to organise a small coworking office at the university where our students will not just study but also work on projects, some of which will be conducted under the guidance of leading specialists from MTS. We believe that our future lies with this educational format, as having complemented it with such novel formats as adaptive modular mixed and online education, individual educational paths and project work, we’ll be getting established specialists who can become leaders in their future teams as graduates,” notes Dmitry Myromtsev, head of the international research laboratory "Intelligent Information Processing Methods and Semantic Technologies".
Find out more about the System and Applied Software Master’s program here.
