LAION AI/ONEAPI CENTER OF EXCELLENCE FOR PERSONALIZED AI EDUCATION

Large-scale Artificial Intelligence Open Network (LAION) is honored to become an Intel AI/oneAPI Center of Excellence to advance the development of BUD-E (Buddy for Understanding and Digital Empathy), an open source, empathetic AI education assistant aimed at democratizing personalized learning worldwide.

Leading the Center are Christoph Schuhmann (LAION e.V.) and Dr. Robert Kaczmarczyk (LAION e.V., DFKI), in collaboration with Intel's oneAPI experts.

Leveraging open, standards-based oneAPI multiarchitecture programming, the Center will develop BUD-E, a sophisticated AI-powered voice assistant designed to provide personalized education to learners across the globe, with a special focus on children in developing countries. The project aims to create an AI companion that can interact with warmth, empathy, and high emotional intelligence, encouraging learners to explore the world and discover their potential.

BUD-E is built on a client-server architecture, allowing for minimal hardware requirements on the client side. This enables the system to run on older smartphones and low-powered computers from multiple different vendors, making it accessible to a wide range of users across multiple countries. The server-side architecture is modular, incorporating various APIs and allowing for easy integration of different language models, text-to-speech models, and custom "skills" (Python functions that can be dynamically called by the assistant).

"We are thrilled to establish this new AI/oneAPI Center of Excellence with Intel," says Christoph Schuhmann, who co-leads the project. "As AI continues to reshape the educational landscape, there is a pressing need to ensure that these powerful tools are accessible to all, regardless of their economic or geographical circumstances. With oneAPI, we can optimize BUD-E's performance across various hardware architectures, making high-quality AI-assisted education a reality for millions of children worldwide."

Dr. Robert Kaczmarczyk adds, "Our vision for BUD-E goes beyond just providing information. We're creating a companion that can adapt to different languages and cultures, understand and respond to emotions, and foster a love for learning. This collaboration with Intel allows us to leverage cutting-edge open source and AI technology to make this vision a reality."

The Center will focus on several key areas:

1. Developing and fine-tuning multilingual speech recognition, language understanding, and text-to-speech models optimized for various languages and cultures.
2. Creating a flexible, modular architecture that allows for easy customization and localization of BUD-E for different regions and educational needs.
3. Implementing advanced natural language processing techniques to enable BUD-E to engage in meaningful, context-aware conversations that adapt to the learner's level and interests.
4. Exploring the use of oneAPI to optimize BUD-E's performance across various hardware configurations, ensuring smooth operation even on low-powered devices.

The efforts by LAION's AI/oneAPI Center of Excellence aims at solving a fundimental need in society to provide our children with access to personalized, high-quality education,“ said Joe Curley, vice president and general manager of Software Products and Ecosystem at Intel. "To make this possible, both Intel and LAION share a passion for open development and access to AI technology and AI powered education.“

As development progresses, LAION will open source the curriculum, offer educational activities, and provide opportunities for researchers, educators, and developers worldwide to contribute to and benefit from this groundbreaking project.

By making the entire system 100% open source, free, privacy-compliant, and European Union (EU)-AI-Act-compliant, LAION and Intel are raising the bar for accessible AI education.

Imagine a world where every child has a warm, humble AI companion - emotionally intelligent and competent, and completely transparent. The companion nurtures curiosity without collecting data, preserving privacy. What wonders might unfold? With BUD-E, we're making this dream real. Ready to join us?