[AI Revolution](128) "AI Will Take Care of the Chit-Chat Effect"... HiLocal Helps Foreign Language Learning

Interview with Yoon Jeong-ho, CEO of HiLocal
Helping Foreign Language Learning by Fine-tuning ChatGPT

Yoon Jeong-ho, CEO of HiLocal, is being interviewed by Asia Economy at the office in Seongsu-dong, Seoul. Photo by Jo Yong-jun

"The greatest feature of generative artificial intelligence (AI) is its ability to understand context. This is also why I thought of combining foreign language learning with AI."

With the introduction of AI, one of the areas with significant utilization is foreign language education. It goes beyond simple translation to suggest expressions appropriate to context and situations, as well as propose educational methods to enhance learning outcomes. Yoon Jeong-ho, CEO of HiLocal, explained, "While providing foreign language conversation learning services, we anticipated that generative AI could be efficiently utilized in this domain," adding, "It is feasible to analyze foreign language conversations and perform real-time analysis."

HiLocal has advocated a conversation-centered acquisition method rather than a traditional learning approach. The goal is to improve conversational skills through social network-based foreign language learning via dialogue. When learners want to practice, they can always get help from HiLocal to converse with foreign language users and improve their speaking skills. HiLocal has integrated AI into this process. AI acts as an assistant in conversation acquisition by suggesting optimal learning methods and correction points. It also provides feedback to help maintain interest and sustain conversations.

The service was named "AI Goguma" (AI Sweet Potato) to symbolize relieving frustration. After completing development, the service will soon be officially launched. It removes complexity and inconvenience, offering a format where users simply chat with foreign friends. Under the slogan "Just chat. AI will bring the learning effect," it is targeting the market.

By using AI Goguma, users can receive evaluations on conversation-related skills such as grammar and pronunciation, as well as suggestions for learning directions. Conversations can be free-flowing without topics or set with specific places or roles like hospitals, airports, or restaurants. Users can also learn with AI based on their level or preferred topics such as travel, food, or business. When chatting with foreign users in chat rooms, audio data is analyzed for pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, listening, and other aspects, and learning methods tailored to the user’s level are provided.

HiLocal utilizes OpenAI’s ChatGPT, a global big tech model, fine-tuned to build its AI assistant. CEO Yoon said, "From the GPT 3.5 model onward, we judged it could be used as a commercial model to assist learning effects," adding, "The key is accurately understanding and analyzing conversational context, and since GPT 3.5, it has been possible to collect and evaluate conversations."

In March, HiLocal was selected for OpenAI’s collaboration program. CEO Yoon personally visited OpenAI headquarters in San Francisco, USA, meeting with engineering and research teams to receive support. They shared feedback related to AI functions, service implementation, voice data analysis, and automation, and received mentoring on integrating large language models (LLM) into their service.

Starting with the launch of AI Goguma, HiLocal plans to focus on creating an application that delivers the best foreign language learning outcomes. CEO Yoon stated, "Ultimately, we want to create a service where just having conversations leads to learning effects," and added, "We will continuously verify how much synergy AI can produce in conversations and learning with foreign friends."