SwiftKey has released another Greenhouse project, this time its the first ever smartphone keyboard that uses an artificial neural network. So, how does this differ from their existing keyboard? SwiftKey is well known for its current keyboards, and its smart word predictions, but the company says using the neural network it can make that even better. With the use of an artificial neural network, the predictions will be smarter and more meaningful based on the context of your sentences.
Through machine learning based on enormous amounts of language data, SwiftKey’s neural model is able to meaningfully capture the relationship between words. It understands word similarity, allowing it to compare words on the fly. Within the neural model, words can be visualized in ‘clusters’, located at varying degrees of proximity to one another.
This understanding allows SwiftKey Neural to predict words that have never been seen in a given sentence context during the learning phase. For example, having seen the phrase “Let’s meet at the airport” during training, the technology is able to infer that “office” or “hotel” are similar words which could also be appropriate predictions in place of “airport”. Further, it understands that “Let’s meet at the airport” has a similar sentence structure to “Let’s chat at the office”. This intelligence allows SwiftKey Neural to offer the most appropriate word based on the sentence being typed.
This is SwiftKey’s first step in the exploration of neural networks for touchscreen keyboards. The alpha, which is available now, gives an early example of the technology in action, and SwiftKey wants user feedback as it continues to push the limits of what the technology can do.
You can download the SwiftKey Neural Alpha from Google Play now.
Source: SwiftKey