NLP and AI in languages beyond English

Andrej Karpathy famously quipped recently that English was the world's most popular programming language. But why English? And what are the consequences? In this meeting, we will have Kevin Scannell of Saint Louis University presenting and leading a discussing on prospects for NLP and AI in languages beyond English. A detailed abstract and biography are given below.

6:00-6:15 Doors Open
6:15-6:30 Meet & Greet
6:30-7:30 Presentation and Guided Discussion
7:30-8:00 Bonus Networking Time

Pizza will be provided courtesy of Capnion, Inc.

Abstract:

We all recognize the amazing success of language language models in developing advanced AI/NLP technologies like ChatGPT for English. But very few other languages have access to the billions of words of text needed to train high-quality LLMs; this is what I call "the new digital divide". I'd like to talk in broad terms about the prospects in terms of AI and NLP for the other 7000 or so languages spoken in the world today.

Discussion points:

* How are language communities trying to bridge this digital divide?
* What about the majority of the world's languages that are spoken languages only (rarely if ever written by speakers of the language)?
* Are there novel architectures or training methods that could help overcome the lack of training data?
* How can we do this work while respecting the priorities of the language communities themselves?

Speaker Bio:

Kevin Scannell is a Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science at Saint Louis University, where he has taught since 1998. His main interest is the development of technology that helps speakers of indigenous and minority languages use their language online, with a particular focus on Irish and the other Celtic languages.