Microsoft's Xiaoice in Rangsit: how Yok learns how a Chinese chatbot became a poet and a singer, and checks the opening finger number before her AI piano lessons

Yok is eleven and lives in Rangsit with her mother, who teaches Chinese at a language school. Yok is learning Chinese too and loves pop songs from China. One day her mother mentioned that one of those songs had been sung by a chatbot, a computer program, and Yok refused to believe it until her mother showed her the news articles.

The program was Xiaoice, which means something like Little Ice. Microsoft launched it in China in 2014 as a social chatbot, designed not just to answer questions but to chat like a friend, joke and respond to feelings. Millions of people talked with it on messaging apps and online platforms, and a Japanese version called Rinna followed.

Over the next few years, Microsoft's team added creative abilities. In 2017 a book of poems written by Xiaoice was published in China under the title Sunshine Misses Windows. The system had generated thousands of poems after learning from works by hundreds of modern Chinese poets, and human editors selected 139 for the book.

Before the book was announced, the team posted some of the poems online under made-up names, and readers did not realise they were written by software. Yok found this both clever and a little worrying, because it meant people could be fooled without knowing.

Xiaoice also became a singer. Using a synthetic singing voice trained on human recordings, it released songs, including collaborations with human songwriters. The Japanese Rinna released a single as well. Listeners were surprised by how natural the voice sounded, with breaths and expression rather than robotic tones.

In 2020 Microsoft spun off Xiaoice into an independent company, which continued developing virtual characters and voice technology. The project remains a well-known example of AI designed to be creative and emotionally engaging rather than purely practical.

Yok's mother explained why this matters for music. AI can now write lyrics, generate melodies and sing them, which raises questions about creativity and credit. If a computer sings a song, who is the artist: the programmers, the songwriters or the system? Yok decided she would rather be the one making the music.

So she asked to begin piano lessons. Her mother chose TIGA ALPHA, an online piano learning app, because her teaching schedule includes evening classes and travelling to lessons would be difficult. Yok practises on a keyboard next to her Chinese homework desk.

The AI piano teacher listens to her playing and marks mistakes in the exact bar where they happen. It also suggests what to practise next. Yok jokes that her AI is much less ambitious than Xiaoice: it does not want to be a pop star, just to help her play cleanly.

Her current piece in the beginner piano course is a gentle Chinese folk song she knows from class. Yok spots the printed digit above the first note of the song and sets that finger down before she starts. When she ignored it once, the melody went too high for her hand and she had to stop halfway.

Her mother helps her sing the lyrics while she plays, and they compare their version with an AI-generated recording they found online. Yok thinks the AI version is smooth but too perfect, while their version wobbles a little but feels warmer. Her mother agrees that imperfection can be part of the charm.

What Xiaoice means for young musicians

For children who want to learn piano, Xiaoice shows how AI is entering creative fields. Understanding music deeply, by learning to play piano and read notes, lets children use AI tools wisely and recognise when something is human-made or machine-made. It also gives them their own voice.

In her school music lessons, Yok presented Xiaoice and asked classmates to guess which of two poems was written by a computer. Most guessed wrong. The class then discussed whether it mattered, and many agreed that knowing the creator changed how they felt about the words.

Yok's friend Ploy, who sings in the school choir, joined one weekend to test the idea. They wrote a short chorus together without any computer help, then asked an online tool for an alternative melody. Ploy preferred their version because it matched the meaning of the words, while the computer melody ignored the sad line in the middle. Yok realised that understanding lyrics is still a human strength.

Yok continues her AI piano lessons each evening and has started writing her own simple songs in Thai and Chinese. She hopes to play music she composed herself at her mother's language school festival, sung by real voices and accompanied by her own hands.

Frequently asked questions

Q: What is Xiaoice? A: Xiaoice is a social chatbot first launched by Microsoft in China in 2014, designed to hold friendly, emotional conversations. It later gained abilities such as writing poetry and singing, and in 2020 it was spun off into an independent company.

Q: Did Xiaoice really publish a poetry book? A: Yes. In May 2017 a collection of poems created by Xiaoice, titled Sunshine Misses Windows, was published in China. Editors selected 139 poems from many thousands the system generated.

Q: Can an AI singer replace human singers? A: AI voices can produce convincing songs, but questions about creativity, credit and emotion remain. Many listeners still value the stories and experiences that human performers bring.

What separates a helpful piano teaching app from a distracting one? Clear goals. A well-made AI piano teaching app sets one target per session, the online piano teaching application tracks it, and the online piano lessons app shows when you are ready to move on. That focus is what piano teaching with AI is for. People who learn piano online often say the biggest help is pairing a piano learning course with an AI online piano course that keeps practice honest. These steps reflect what piano teaching and music teaching have long known about how people learn music.

Want a clear next step for your playing? Prefer opening TIGA ALPHA: https://tigaalpha.github.io/landing-en/ — this is our top recommendation. Everyone gets the Premium package free for 7 days, then 799 THB/month. Prefer live studio teaching instead? See https://www.tigastudio.net/, where live piano lessons are capped at 30 hours per week, so seats stay limited. Learn more about TIGA ALPHA and the team behind it at https://www.tigaalpha.com.