Skip to main content

Why learn to use gadgets when they can just learn to help us? Exactly, says LG

 

A smart dishwasher should sense how caked-on the crud is on your plates and rinse them accordingly. Smart air conditioners should map your room like an air-traffic controller and cool different parts to different degrees. A smart oven should know whether you’ve put in brisket or a spoon roast and cook accordingly.

Today, most appliances aren’t smart, never mind all the years of marketing claims. But they will be — and artificial intelligence is the cornerstone to improving all of those devices, said I.P. Park, president and CTO of LG Electronics.

“Currently you need to be smart to use a smartphone.”

“What AI hopefully will do is solve this problem of using complex systems, so that the devices become smart, and smart devices mean they’ll know exactly what you want,” he told Digital Trends, in an exclusive interview.

This solves the conundrum that lies at the heart of modern technology, threading its way from your phone to your dishwasher to your air conditioner: “Currently you need to be smart to use a smartphone,” he joked.

To make that happen, LG is going all in on AI, announcing Wednesday a massive investment in R&D: The company just cut the ribbon on the new LG Electronics AI Research Lab in Canada, a five-year research partnership with the University of Toronto and an extension of the newly expanded LG Silicon Valley AI Lab in Santa Clara, California, which opened in 2013. LG also has research labs working on AI around the globe, including Russia, Japan, China, Korea, Finland, and India, in addition to the North American spaces.

lg thinq ces 2018
Image used with permission by copyright holder

For competitive reasons, LG can’t disclose how many employees currently working in either facility, but it told Digital Trends that it is investing tens of millions of dollars in the new Toronto AI lab.

“At this stage AI is just the tip of the iceberg of what’s going to happen in the future,” Park said. “When we talk about AI many people think of voice assistants, but it’s much more than that. It’s going to be voice plus vision plus gesture recognition, plus context, plus knowledge … You need to understand what the user wants, in a seamless way. We are not there yet, obviously. But it’s a good beginning.”

Which LG products feature AI today?

“When you’re driving a modern luxury car most people are probably using only 5 percent of the entire feature set of the car, if you’re lucky,” Park said. “Because it’s too complex. A lot of features are there, but you have to be extremely smart and diligent to use them in the correct way.”

“What AI will hopefully do is solve the problem of using complex systems so that the devices become smart. And smart device will know exactly what you want,” Park added.

“At this stage AI is just the tip of the iceberg of what’s going to happen in the future.”

To see what that looks like, take a look to LG’s current lineup of AI-powered products (the company says that virtually all products are connected and will be AI enabled). Last month LG announced AI-powered air conditioners that save you money by adjusting compressor speed to suit the task at hand — a first in the space.

The LG G7 ThinQ is an AI powered smartphone with a button for direct access to the voice assistant — Google’s Assistant, that is. And an AI Cam mode in the camera automatically identifies the scene you’re pointing the phone at. Try to shoot a sunset and the camera will recognize that fact and compare your scene to images of sunsets to try and offer up the best-looking photo.

Look at the latest OLED TV that has an AI feature, Park suggested. “You can talk to it on the remote. It’s got our own AI platform built in. And it connects to external service providers, for example, Google Assistant. So when you talk to it you can say, ‘make the screen brighter’ or ‘find NBC for me,’ it’ll do that, using the AI. But if you say ‘what’s the best restaurant nearby’ it’ll connect to Google Assistant.”

lg thinq remote
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Many technology companies roll out frequent updates to improve their products, leading many consumers weary of “patch Tuesday.” Even automobiles are currently being given new features via updates. That’s certainly handy, and prolongs the life of a product, but Park said LG’s products will improve simply by learning about the user.

“Eventually you won’t even get a user manual with a product. It just comes to you, and by interacting with it, it does work for you.”

What about Alexa, or Cortana, or Google Assistant, or Siri….?

“The world has become just too complex for any single company to insist on using their own proprietary closed solutions, no matter how big the company is, how capable their R&D is,” Park said. He won’t say it, but I will: Bixby.

“It’s a learning process. This is quite new, but it’s one of our key components for success in the future.”

In early 2017 I flew to Korea to discuss Samsung’s ambitious plans for a new voice assistant, with exclusive access to the company’s hardware and the ability to allow all of the devices it makes to talk, collaborate, and simplify your life. In the year and a half since then, the company has struggled to keep pace with the rapid advancements in voice technology, leaving many questioning the wisdom of wading into a crowded market and trying to catch up. LG has a different strategy.

“It’s a combination of competition and collaboration,” Park said. And that extends not just to the biggest companies like Google and Amazon but smaller startups with big ideas.

Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends

“I like to think of these startups from Silicon Valley or Israel or Korea or other regions in the world to be an extension of our R&D,” Park said. “Sometimes we work with them together in a joint project, sometimes we invest in them, sometimes we acquire them.”

“It’s a learning process for LG. This is quite new, but it’s one of our key components for success in the future,” he added.

Security concerns?

Privacy becomes an even bigger factor when you talk about products that know more than mere facts about us: they know who we are. How long you take to shower in the morning, what time of day do you usually arrive home, how frequently you wash your clothing. Is that information that should be shared? What about your privacy and security?

LG sets many data collection options in its product to “off” by default.

“We take those two things very seriously,” Park said. LG builds security into its products from the design phase, he said. “We call it LGSDL: LG secure software development lifestyle. Hopefully our products will be secure enough when we launch them to fight against any kind of malicious attack from outside.”

LG does not collect user specific data, he noted, though it does aggregate overall behaviors to try to improve its products. If people only wash their clothing on the weekend, perhaps LG laundry appliances could be put into low power mode during the week.

Laudably, LG sets many data collection options in its product to “off” by default — a policy other technology companies would be wise to imitate. Forcing consumers to opt out of data collection policies sets mistrust from the get-go — LG aims to circumvent that.

So the next time you go shopping for technology, be it a toaster oven or television, look to see if AI is in there — and if it is, rest assured. It’s going to help.

Jeremy Kaplan
As Editor in Chief, Jeremy Kaplan transformed Digital Trends from a niche publisher into one of the fastest growing…
25 Valentine’s Day gifts that she’ll brag about to her friends (seriously)
Roses on a calendar

Valentine's Day can be a minefield for gifts that totally miss the mark with a significant other — but it doesn't have to be. We've combed the gifting landscape and found 25 Valentine's Day gifts for her that your wife, girlfriend, partner, (er, mom?) will actually like.

And we don't mean she'll smile and say thanks, only to throw whatever it is in a pile and never think about it again (unless it's to consider what a subpar present it was). We mean she'll delight in a truly premium blanket to cuddle up with on chilly afternoons. She'll wear the hell out of trendy new sneaks and a Valentine's Day-inspired sweater that's not too, you know, Valentine's Day-y. She'll need this iPad to watch all the content if TikTok shuts down again!

Read more
Kwikset launches two new smart locks with Z-Wave support
The HomeConnect 918 on a door.

Kwikset, a manufacturer of both traditional and smart locks, has officially released the HomeConnect 918 and the HomeConnect 620 -- two smart locks that are fully compatible with Z-Wave. This technology gives you the flexibility to install the locks far away from its hub, thanks to its support for long-distance connections.

The HomeConnect 918 is the most exciting of the duo, allowing you to save up to 250 user codes and boasting a sleek touchscreen design. Most families probably only need to have a handful of codes, but if you’re using the lock on a rental property or on the front door of your small business, the flexibility to store hundreds of codes is certainly nice. It’s also highly secure, thanks to an S2 security encryption to help prevent unauthorized access.

Read more
Upcoming Amazon event invite teases a new AI-powered Alexa
A blue image that has the Amazon swoop and "Hi there." with the date February 26 listed below.

This week, Amazon sent out invitations to an upcoming event hosted by Amazon Senior Vice President Panos Panay and the Amazon Devices & Services team in New York City on February 26. As can be seen in the image above, the invite Digital Trends received had the signature Amazon swoop with "Hi there." front and center, and the date towards the bottom, all on top of a shaded blue background that included what on the surface looked like some attractive, curved design elements.

Sure, the design gave off a feeling of Amazon Alexa, but beyond speculation around what the event might be about, the innocuous email didn't seem to divulge any useful information. That is, until The Verge did some impressive sleuthing and discovered that there wasn't one email invite sent out, but five. That attractive, curved background was actually part of some cursive text that, when all five invitation were put together, spelled out "alexa." Pretty strong confirmation to those Alexa feels.

Read more