According to developers, this is the world’s first smartphone keyboard software that uses artificial neural networks to predict and correct what the user is typing.
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It also allows it to predict words that have never been seen in a given sentence context during the learning phase. Neural does this by looking at the words you’ve already written to infer possible meaning – this is in contrast to the mainline release of SwiftKey which simply suggests words you’ve used a lot in the past.
Artificial intelligence technology being developed by SwiftKey could eventually write whole sentences, or maybe even whole emails, for you.
Taking this one step further, this intelligence can also utilize similar sentences from your past messages to better predict words. Even in this early alpha state, it seems SwiftKey may have found that special something to take their keyboard app to the next level.
With SwiftKey Neural Alpha, SwiftKey aims to offer a keyboard that “makes smarter and more meaningful word suggestions in the context of your sentences”. It’s different from keyboard apps using traditional “n-gram” technology to predict the likelihood of your next word based on common phrases or things you’ve typed previously.
SwiftKey Neural Alpha swaps the company’s popular prediction engine, known as N-gram technology, for a new kind of tech that’s based on neural networks, which means that it’s inspired by the structure of the human brain.
That means that it knows that “Let’s meet at the” might be followed by a place like “office” or “airport”. The new version is unique in that its predictions are calculated directly on the mobile device. You’ll use it at your own risk, where the risk is you get an app that doesn’t get updated and might not work a few months down the road – not too bad. Work Deep Learning Summit in London and he discussed the company’s research into neural networks.
I interviewed SwiftKey CTO Ben Medlock onstage at the recent Re.
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‘We envision that this powerful technology will fundamentally change the way we type on smartphones over the next five years. This app understands complex word relationships and makes your typing have the potential to be quicker than on any other platform.
