China News Service, February 26 (China News reporter Wu Tao) "Abandon traditional mobile phones" and "there is no upper limit on investment in AI mobile phones"... As artificial intelligence applications continue to gain popularity in recent years, many domestic mobile phone manufacturers have successively released AI mobile phones or Related AI products.
What are the similarities and differences between AI phones and traditional smartphones?
Is this a gimmick or a real subversion of tradition?
Manufacturers are transforming into AI mobile phones
Recently, many mobile phone manufacturers such as OPPO and Xiaomi have released AI mobile phones or related applications.
For example, Xiaomi released the "Xiaomi AISP" upgraded from the "Xiaomi Imaging Brain" and positioned it as "the first AI large-model computational photography platform."
Data map.
Photo by Chen Guanyan
OPPO Chief Product Officer Liu Zuohu said, "AI mobile phones will be the third major stage of change in the mobile phone industry after feature phones and smartphones. In the era of AI mobile phones, both the mobile phone industry and user experience will usher in revolutionary changes. "
The Pocket 2 recently released by Huawei Terminal integrates AI skin measurement, air-to-air operation and other applications into the mobile phone. Its sunscreen assistant can not only detect ultraviolet intensity and sunscreen application, but also generate skin measurement reports.
Chen Guanzhou, director and general manager of MediaTek, also recently said, "AI phones, as mobile intelligence, will use innovative applications that subvert our imagination to redefine the smart phone experience."
There are various signs that this year will be a year of "chaos" for AI mobile phones, and some even believe that 2024 will be the "first year of AI mobile phones."
However, there is currently no authoritative definition of what an AI phone is.
A report released by International Data Corporation (IDC) shows that the "new generation of AI mobile phones" defined by IDC use systems on a chip (SoC) that can run end-side generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) models faster and more efficiently.
Gimme marketing or real AI?
Some analysts pointed out that these new devices are arousing strong interest from consumers and original equipment manufacturers, making AI a key marketing content in recent flagship product launches.
Communication industry observer Xiang Ligang said in an interview with a reporter from Sino-Singapore Finance that AI functions have actually been integrated into smartphones for a long time. For example, artificial intelligence is used to manage mobile phone power, photography, communication, etc., which has further improved the battery life of mobile phones. Now it has A large model has been added to make it more functional and efficient.
"However, at present, the so-called AI mobile phones have not fundamentally changed compared to the original smartphones. There is not much difference. The promotion of AI mobile phones is also a marketing method of some mobile phone manufacturers, and there are gimmick elements in it." Xiang Li Just expressed.
Data map.
Photo by China News Service reporter Tang Yanjun
Some consumers told Sino-Singapore Finance, "When buying a mobile phone, you mainly need to see whether it meets your own needs, such as taking photos, videos, chatting on WeChat, etc. There is not much demand for AI, and you will not buy it for the so-called AI premium."
In addition, a data consulting company said that from the perspective of mobile phone chips, there are currently only three chips in the world that can meet AI mobile phone standards.
In other words, a mobile phone using these three chips is not necessarily an AI mobile phone, but it is certainly not an AI phone if it does not use it.
Small language models may develop as a result
Although it is not ruled out that AI mobile phones are suspected of being hyped, and some people believe that the launch of AI mobile phones is far less meaningful than when smartphones replaced feature phones, the current mainstream view is that AI mobile phones will develop rapidly this year.
The latest data from IDC shows that global shipments of new-generation AI mobile phones are expected to reach 170 million units, accounting for 15% of the global mobile phone market.
By 2027, China's AI mobile phone shipments will reach 150 million units, accounting for 51.9% of the Chinese mobile phone market.
It is worth noting that some mobile phone manufacturers have integrated their large models into mobile phone functions to become AI mobile phones.
However, Microsoft Research gave other ideas, "Parameters are variables or adjustable elements that affect the behavior of the model. Although compared with the hundreds of billions of parameters of large language models, the billions of parameters owned by small language models (SLMs) are much larger. It's much less, but it's still quite large, but it's enough to run offline on a mobile phone."
Microsoft Research believes that these large models are very huge and require a lot of computing resources to run, so the development of small language models has become very important. “The advantages of small language models in scale and cost will make artificial intelligence more Popularize." (End)