Rakuten’s Post

Transcript

[Ting] The most fundamental breakthrough of AI recently is creativity. It requires people to think differently. People can accomplish more and learn faster. Grow their career. [Vanessa] Can you give us one example? [Ting] Yeah recently one intern in my team He... [Narrator] Ting Cai is the Group Chief AI and Data Officer at Rakuten overseeing AI strategy, engineering and research for over 70 businesses. Ting is passionate about using AI to help people achieve more. [Vanessa] So you've been championing responsible AI. Can you tell us some of the key features of Rakuten Group AI Code of Ethics? [Ting] So we published a Rakuten Group AI Code of Ethics and to me that is super important because... [Ting] How are you Vanessa? [Vanessa] I'm good. How are you Ting? Good, good. Thank you for the opportunity. How do you think that Rakuten AI can augment human creativity? That's a good question. And this is actually the most fundamental breakthrough of AI recently which is creativity. The recent gen AI revolution has a lot more capability to synthesize knowledge across so many domains and create new things. And you can use gen AI to create images create music create very soon movies. It's up to your imagination and the possibilities are unlimited. [Vanessa] So you've been championing Rakuten AI and responsible AI. Can you please tell us some of the key features of our Rakuten Group AI Code of Ethics? [Ting] Yeah so we published our Rakuten Group AI Code of Ethics. And to me that is super important because integrity is number one. And as a business the most important thing in my opinion is for the business to earn trust. Without customer trust we don't have anything. So it's very important for us to establish that trust from transparency on how we use the data and also ensure safety. And we think of Rakuten Group AI Code of Ethics not just a guideline on a piece of paper. We want to put it into execution so we can ensure AI safety rigorously. And for example we integrate AI safety like cybersecurity. So we can monitor the conversation quality like twenty-four seven right. To prevent harmful content from being produced, to prevent malicious hacks [from those] who may be trying to steal our model architecture or steal customer data. So we have that safeguard in production twenty-four seven. [Vanessa] Can you give us one example that gets you really excited about how we are empowering people and maybe society at large? [Ting] Recently one intern in my team, he, you know... He hasn't even graduated from university yet and he doesn't even, say, qualify as a software engineer for our full-time interview. But he was able to create a test plan and ask AI to generate code for him. And then suddenly he becomes like a full-time qualified software engineer, right? So that's just one example that AI enables people to to accomplish more. So they can learn faster, they can grow their career faster. So I think previously we talked about AI safety. But I want to emphasize that the latest AI also requires people to... to think differently when they use AI as a tool. Because AI is creative. It's also... important to have a critical eye to look at the output of AI. And you can invite AI to reflect. You can invite AI to double-check. You can give AI feedback saying, "You are wrong, please correct it." And then AI will adapt. And to me that continuous learning, that adaptability in the conversations is the most amazing thing. [Vanessa] Do you have one more example where you felt that we really empowered society at large with our Rakuten AI? [Ting] Yeah. I think language... You know, I believe human language is so fundamental to how we communicate, how we connect with other people. But language remains a barrier. But if you spend the time, enable people to communicate using a common language and then there's much more empathy, much more understanding among each other, then I think the world would be more peaceful. So I see AI can play this [role as a] very... fundamental value. You know, to enable translation to enable people to connect better with each other and therefore understand each other better. [Vanessa] Thank you. What a wonderful world we're creating here. Thank you very much for your time. - [Ting] Thank you very much. - [Vanessa] Thank you.