Startup Launches AI Santa Claus, Enabling Children to Have Realistic Voice Conversations
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If artificial intelligence is truly coming to take human jobs, this week might be a good time, especially when it comes to assisting the busiest person on Earth.
Seattle-based startup Fixie, which focuses on helping businesses integrate large language models into their software stacks, has launched HiSanta.ai. This is a web experience that allows people to have real-time AI voice conversations with characters such as Santa Claus, Rudolph, and Mrs. Claus.
Users visiting the website simply select the character they want to talk to, click the call button, and then engage in conversations about various topics, including holiday wish lists. Santa responds quickly, answering in a voice resembling a British accent.
Matt Welsh, Chief Architect and co-founder of Fixie, said: "We thought this would be fun. It's primarily something we built as a tech demo."
Fixie's core technology showcased is their platform, which assists enterprises in integrating large language model technology into their products. Recently focusing on real-time voice interaction, Welsh stated that Fixie strives to make multiple models, such as speech-to-text, language models similar to OpenAI's ChatGPT-3, and text-to-speech, work together seamlessly.
"When attempting to build something like this, a significant amount of engineering effort is required to make it truly fast," Welsh said. "Therefore, we've put in a lot of work to make it real-time and interactive, and we believe the performance is quite good."
Speed is crucial when a child waits for Santa Claus to respond to any Christmas gift they've just requested. Fixie doesn't want any lag in response time, or else children might lose interest.
HiSanta was launched last week, and Welsh mentioned they've already had over 10,000 conversations to date, totaling about 20 hours of conversation time daily across all users. Most conversations last one or two minutes, but some try to keep Santa talking endlessly, with Welsh even seeing conversations exceeding 30 minutes.
该工具的开发团队还对AI圣诞老人进行了广泛测试，努力使其崩溃或说出不适合圣诞信仰者的事情。"我的孩子们对此进行了相当深入的压力测试，试图让这些模型失控，但我们无法做到。" Welsh说:"我们已经明确告诉它不要回答有关圣诞老人真实性的任何问题。这是非常重要的事情。我们不希望模型说出任何关于那方面的话。"
Welsh表示，Fixie将HiSanta视为展示其公司技术的典范。自从Fixie在春季创立以来，人工智能领域已经发生了很大变化，Welsh表示，尽管对该技术的兴奋感没有减退，但人们现在正意识到在任何应用场景中使用该技术需要解决一系列技术问题。
"我们一直专注于不仅使人们能够组合简单粗糙的演示，而且使它们进入生产阶段，以便他们对结果感到非常满意。"他说:"但事实证明，这比我们预期的要困难得多。"
Fixie的其他创始人包括首席技术官Justin Uberti，他曾在Google工作了14年以上，担任工程领导职务;首席执行官Zach Koch最近曾任Shopify产品管理主管;首席人工智能官Hessam Bagherinezhad也曾在Xnor.ai担任机器学习主管。
The company completed a $17 million seed funding round in March.