Experts aim to fill the language gap

Although Africa is home to a large percentage of the world’s languages ​​- more than a quarter according to some estimates – many of them are missing when it comes to developing artificial intelligence.

This is an issue of lack of investment and the available data.

Most artificial intelligence tools, such as GPT chat, are used today on English as well as European and Chinese languages.

These have huge amounts of text online to draw from.

But since many African languages ​​are often speaking instead of writing, there is a lack of text to train artificial intelligence to make it useful for speaking of these languages.

Millions throughout the continent, this means charges.

Researchers who are trying to process this issue recently released what is believed to be the largest known collection of African languages.

“We are thinking about our own languages, dreaming about them and interpreting the world through them. If technology does not reflect this, a full group risk backwardness,” said Professor Fukusi Marifthi at the University of Pretoria, who worked on the project.

“We are going through this revolution from artificial intelligence, we palm all that can be done.

The Feraving Next Voices project collected between linguists and computer scientists to create ready -made data collections for AI in 18 African languages.

This may be a small part of more than 2000 languages ​​that can be spoken throughout the continent, but those who participate in the project say they hope to expand in the future.

Within two years, the team scored 9000 hours of speech throughout Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa, as it acquired daily scenarios in agriculture, health and education.

The recorded languages ​​included Kikuyu and Dhluo in Kenya, Husa, Yuruba in Nigeria, ISIZULU and Tshiven in South Africa, which some of them speak of millions of people.

“You need some basis to start with this, what are the sounds coming from Africa and then people will build on it and add their own innovations,” says Professor Marivath, who led the research in South Africa.

His Kenyan counterpart, the computer linguist Lilian and Anzari, says that recording the speech on the continent means creating data aimed at reflecting how people really live and speak.

“We have collected voices of different regions, ages and backgrounds, so they are as comprehensive as possible. Large technology cannot always see these nuances,” she says.

The project has become possible with the Gates Foundation grant of $ 2.2 million (1.6 million pounds).

The data will be open, allowing developers to create tools that translate, copy and respond to them in African languages.

There are already small examples of how the original languages ​​used in artificial intelligence are used to solve realistic challenges in Africa, according to Professor Marivathi.

KeleBogile Mosime runs 21 hectares in Rustenburg, the heart of platinum in South Africa.

The 45-year-old works with a small team to grow rows of vegetables-including beans, spinach, cauliflower and tomatoes.

It started just three years ago, with the cabbage crop, and to help use an application called AI-Farmer, which recognizes many South African languages, including Sesotho, ISIZULU and Afrikaans, to help solve various problems.

“Since someone is still learning the farm, you are facing a lot of challenges,” says Mshasim.

“Daily, I see the benefits of the ability to use my home language on the app when I face farm problems, ask anything and get a useful answer.

“For a person in rural areas like me who is not exposed to technology, this is useful. I can ask about different options for controlling insects, and they were also useful in diagnosing sick plants,” and they abandoned under the sun of the wide edge.

Lelapa Ai is a young company for South Africa that builds artificial intelligence tools in African languages ​​for banks and telecommunications companies.

For Pelonomi Moiloa CEO, what is currently available is very restricted.

“The English language is the language of opportunities. For many South Africa who are not talking about, it is not only uncomfortable – this may mean the loss of basic services such as health, banking or even government support,” I told BBC.

“The language can be a large barrier. We say it should not be.”

But this is more than you are about work and comfort.

For Professor Marifthi, there is also a risk of not losing something else without other initiatives

He says, “Language is to reach imagination.”

“They are not just words – they are history, culture and knowledge. If the original languages ​​are not included, we lose more than data; we lose the ways and understanding of the world.”