London Data Week event: "How Good Are AI Language Models In Global (African) Languages?"

[JoBrodie]

Good morning all

Well this might be a bit niche :-)

How Good Are AI Language Models In Global Languages?
2 July (10am-4pm), King's College London (Strand)
https://londondataweek.org/events/#how-good-are-ai-language-models-in-global-languages
Free

It's London Data Week next week with lots of nerdy events going on around the capital and a few online events too (though it's mostly fairly London-centric). This event might be of interest to anyone who speaks one of these languages: "አማርኛ (Amharic), Hausa, Northern Sotho (Sepedi), Kiswahili (Swahili), Yorùbá (Yoruba), and isiZulu (Zulu)."

"Address: Great Hall, King’s College London, Strand Campus, Strand, London, WC2R 2LS
Time: 10:00 – 16:00
The event is an interactive workshop organised by grassroots AI researchers from across Africa that focuses on how good AI language models like ChatGPT are in global Languages, with a focus on six African languages: አማርኛ (Amharic), Hausa, Northern Sotho (Sepedi), Kiswahili (Swahili), Yorùbá (Yoruba), and isiZulu (Zulu).
The day will be split into two halves:

1. The morning will be a technical overview of challenges in the domain covering cutting-edge research with lightning talks from leading researchers
2. The afternoon will be an interactive workshop including demos of models and breakout sessions focused on how language communities can help shape the development of AI systems and address critical ethical considerations.

This event is suitable for AI researchers and practitioners and community members from low resource language communities, especially those who speak አማርኛ (Amharic), Hausa, Northern Sotho (Sepedi), Kiswahili (Swahili), Yorùbá (Yoruba), and isiZulu (Zulu)."

AI language models have largely been trained on American & British English (ease of access to digitised material, bias of researchers) and projects are underway to ensure better access to speakers of other languages. I came across this quote from a LinkedIn article

"No shade on the Westerners, but there is a clear divide that excludes non-English speaking Africans from using digital services. This also limits the data needed for training machines in African languages. Try asking your voice assistant Siri to order an Uber in your mother tongue, it would be as lost as a tourist without a map! (Sorry Siri, but it’s true, still appreciate you though).

'The right to build technology in the language of our ancestors is the right to future imaginaries.' - Pelonomi Moiloa, CEO, Lelapa AI - Ted Talk, San Francisco."

Jo