#9: Digitalisation and Languages

Ian Bowie
Hello and welcome to AI unfiltered with me Ian Bowie and our resident expert, Michael Stormbom, where we will be talking about everything to do with AI in our modern digital society and what the future holds for all of us.

The question for today is actually about AI and language and in particular, do we have some kind of linguistic imperialism going on with regard to the English language in AI because as we know, AI is very much data driven. And at least my uneducated guess, is that an awful lot of the data that’s used for AI and its development is actually English. So if we think about the future, how is that going to impact on minority languages around the world? Are they actually going to basically become less and less relevant as time goes on?

Michael Stormbom
I think there’s definitely a great risk for that. And I mean, there’s even this concept digital extinction, which refers to exactly that. So if there’s not material for a language if there’s not information online in a specific language, then the languages… And since we live ever more of our lives online, then the language goes extinct, because you have no practical use for it in a way. So I mean, that’s what’s happening in Iceland, where there’s this big government initiative going on to ensure the survival of the Icelandic language really, because English is so widely spoken, especially among the younger generation, and there’s only so much material available in Icelandic. There’s only so much language technology available for Icelandic. So I think that’s… and it should be noted Icelandic is of course a fairly well resourced languages, it’s a wealthy country, Iceland as well. So nevermind smaller minority languages or languages spoken in countries do not have the resources Iceland have.

Ian Bowie
I mean, this Icelandic project, I mean, it’s simply being saved for cultural and identity purposes, because at the end of the day, if if material is not available in Icelandic, it becomes less and less relevant, doesn’t it? I mean, I think it’s an example I’ve used before and probably will again and again and again. But the vast majority of diagnostic programs within the car industry nowadays are available in Finland only in English. You know, the car manufacturers, they’re not investing in translating the software into Finnish because the market’s just not big enough. And so, you know, the way I see it developing in the future, what would be the point in in actually training mechanics in Finnish at all because everything that they will ever do in their working lives will be in English, so that they don’t, or they will never need to know, for example, what is cylinder head gasket in Finnish, because it’s not relevant. I had this conversation with an IT manager some years ago, and I was actually asking I can’t remember exactly what the word I wanted from him was, but you know, what is this in Finnish and his reaction, he’s a Finn himself. He said, I’ve got no idea, he says, I don’t even care. He says, everything that I do is in English. I don’t need to know what it is in Finnish and I don’t want to know what it is in Finnish.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, no, I mean same here, I mean, I know very little IT terminology in my native language, Swedish, let alone Finnish. I mean, it’s it’s all in English. That is the language of IT.

Ian Bowie
It was a little bit his attitude that a little bit surprised me as well. You know, it really was, you know, I don’t know and I don’t care. It wasn’t I don’t know, and perhaps I should, because actually, you know, Finnsh is my native language. But now he just wasn’t even interested.

It started off with with the idea that you know, how much data that is used for AI applications is actually English and how much is other languages? And then if you think about other languages, are they actually going to be forced to accept that all AI applications, AI applications available to them are in English?

Michael Stormbom
Well, I would say that they are not accepting that because any number of these European initiatives are on that very topic, so and so ensuring language equality as it’s called. So no, I don’t think they are accepting of that.

Ian Bowie
But I mean, you know, language equality. I mean, what a waste of money, don’t you think?

Michael Stormbom
Well, no.

Ian Bowie
You wouldn’t, because of course, you come from one of these minority languages. But I mean, you know, to me, sitting as a linguistic imperialist. I just, I don’t, I don’t see the point. I don’t see the point in virtually reinventing the wheel to accommodate minority languages. I mean, why not, you know, especially in minority languages, where the vast majority of the people already speak and understand English.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, but it’s not so much about reinventing the wheel. I mean, certainly the algorithms don’t change. It’s all about the data that you put into it. So if you just have enough data, then you don’t necessarily need to change, change, much of anything else.

Ian Bowie
We’ve discussed this before. You know, I mean, in order to make something work, effectively with AI, you need vast amounts of data. So if you think about how long it takes to develop something, using English, then to have to spend an equal amount of time doing the same thing for Finnish or for Hungarian or for Romanian. It’s ridiculous. I mean, who’s going to pay for that?

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, but I think the point being that once , you have the methodologies, you don’t need to spend as much time you just need to, you just need the data.

Ian Bowie
You need the data, but it’s gonna take you a hell of a long time to collate all that data, isn’t it?

Michael Stormbom
Not necessarily. I mean, for example, in Finland, there’s this crowdsourcing thing going on where you’re sort of donating speech…

Ian Bowie
yeah, I’ve seen that Yle thing. Yeah.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah. And I mean they’ve collected a lot of of speech. And of course, there’s, well, there’s any number of existing materials, like audiom video, text that you can make use of so no, I think no, no, I don’t see that as a… first of all, I don’t see it as a waste of money when I see… I don’t see that the leap to making these things work in, in other languages than in English is all that great, necessarily. It requires a little bit of concerted effort. So no, I don’t see that as a I don’t see that as a waste of….

Ian Bowie
But you’re always going to be behind as a minority language, aren’t you? Because it’s always going to come in English first.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, but what so what? Yeah, I think it’s better to be behind than to not exist.

Ian Bowie
I suppose that’s true. Yeah. I just see, I just see that English becomes more and more relevant, and other languages become less and less. And, you know, I mean, things do go extinct. You have to accept, you just accept it. You know, I mean, living organisms become extinct. Living languages suddenly become extinct. It’s just the way the world goes. It’s, it’s natural evolution. The strong survive and the weak don’t. Why should we worry so much about language?

Michael Stormbom
Well, I mean, we talked about how our language affects the way you think, how it goes and your identity actually, it’s almost and so.. furthermore, there’s 7 billion people on the planet, and a very small minority of those are born with English as a native. I mean, it’s one it’s one thing one thing if all these languages are like, gradually go extinct, and everyone starts speaking English as their native language, but yeah, we are we are many, many years away from any such…

Ian Bowie
Absolutely we are, but but think about this one as an interesting thought. Language. Different languages also act as a divider. They give you a unique cultural identity or a feeling of identity with a certain tribe, let’s say. But isn’t that actually one of the biggest problems that we have in the world, that we have all these different people identifying with all these different tribes, and being suspicious of each other? Now, if we had one lingua lingua franca in the world, it might actually bring us closer together?

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, a lingua franca, but a lingua franca is not necessary your native language so I mean, that’s the…

Ian Bowie
No no, but you see, but one global language?

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, but how.. how I mean, even so, I mean, we’re talking about a process that would take generations still, so how do you accommodate the people who are inherently not native if you’re not being…

Ian Bowie
All I’m thinking of course, you know, this is the problem with with human beings. We are intrinsically tribal, and it doesn’t matter, even within our same linguistic sort of cultural group. We have subdivisions and sub-tribes. Yeah, so you know the football tribe for example. You know, I support Chelsea we’re gonna get you pal because you know, we all support Tottenham Hotspur or something. You might not ever be able to get away with it. But when push comes to shove, they’re all native English speakers. So if somebody comes from another tribe and says, Well, you know, well, hey, guess what, Paris Saint-Germain. And then suddenly the Tottenham and the Chelsea fans will gang together because they united as being English. Now we’re going to get them. But I think if everybody spoke English and the Paris Saint-Germain guy came along, and the title of a guy came along and the chassis guy came along. They probably just have a three way fight.

Michael Stormbom
Well, personally, I’m an IFK Mariehamn fan so I have no idea what you’re talking about. No, but nobody I mean, to that point. So if we are tribal, anyway, the language, language doesn’t actually matter.

Ian Bowie
It’s a big part of it, though. I mean, I don’t know I’m just so sick and tired. People finding excuses to have a fight to go to war, when they to whatever. And I just wonder, you know, can we ever get over this or is it just in in human DNA, we will always find a reason to want to kill each other.

Michael Stormbom
I think so. And also to the point about language, I mean, there are different dialects and I think just if you live in proximity to other people, and you start, I think your own language, own dialects will inevitably start to develop anyways to develop possibly in the future will be this like, Finnish English, for example. So I think, I think conflict is inevitable when you have human beings involved. We can’t avoid it. Yeah, no. Well, there’s of course, if we go to the Bible, just to really stay on the topic of AI, the story of the Tower of Babel. Prior to that, people, all the people in the world spoke the same language. And and then so in order to sow division as a punishment, God created this. We’re like a different, different language in different languages. Yes, yeah.

Ian Bowie
Yeah. So I am right. To at least you know, there you go.

Michael Stormbom
From a biblical point of view…

Ian Bowie
It’s in the Bible. Yeah.

I mean, I remember years ago, the French government, putting a ban on the media, using English words in articles if there was a French word readily available, because they were so worried about, again, the creep of English into French. Yeah. I mean, I understand it completely. And I think I know the Finnish language institute, for example, are quite worried about this creep of English, especially amongst younger Finns.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, and I mean, there’s so there’s, of course a genuine concern about Finnish as an academic language as well. I mean, nevermind, Swedish is an academic language in Finland but also Finnish, because English is so widely used.

Ian Bowie
But is that not also because a lot of the textbooks are never translated into finnish? Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Because the markets just not big enough.

Michael Stormbom
No, indeed. I mean, I think English has quite decisively won the battle of the academic languages.

Ian Bowie
Yeah. Which of course is probably also going to be a driver in the demise of certain languages, because they’re no longer relevant. If you can’t study in that language. Why bother with it at all? Surely, that’s going to happen in the future.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, no. No, indeed, absolutely.

Ian Bowie
But that’s where AI can play a role. You know, the virtual classroom, the virtual English teacher. So, again, we go back to that idea of accessibility, that..

Michael Stormbom
You know, I think the access to the infrastructure is more important than I would say, more important than the English language, if we start talking about things like machine translation and the like. So I think then, the other aspect is, do we actually need to learn languages in the future, English or any other language?

Ian Bowie
That is a very good point. And I thought about that because of course, my background is in language teaching. And I felt for quite a long time that

Michael Stormbom
And in the interest of full disclosure. We do machine translation at my employer.

Ian Bowie
Yeah, it wouldn’t. He wouldn’t take very much to make me completely redundant. But….

Michael Stormbom
I do think we are starting to be at the point where do you actually need to learn foreign language but again, then that comes down to the because it’s all about the data.

Ian Bowie
Rich countries, yes. And financial resources.

Michael Stormbom
And it’s all about the data. So if you don’t have the data to train the machine translation, then you’re not going to get any machine translations and stuff. Yeah, I mean, then it comes down to stuff like having a standardized orthography and then the language documented in and so forth, and having materially available in written form for that language and so forth. So…

Ian Bowie
But you see, there are so many languages that don’t have that. You know, you’ve talked about Icelandic. Yes, again, very wealthy country. Small population, admittedly, but they have got money. Finland has got money, Sweden has got money. So again, it’s becoming very, very divisive. There are the haves and the have nots. Once again, we level everybody up by saying right one language I mean, I know… you know, alright, native speakers have an advantage. Potentially, in for example, a negotiating situation when the other person is not a native, but at the end of the day, nothing ever gets done if there isn’t mutual acceptance and understanding. So sometimes, actually, the native isn’t necessarily in an advantageous position at all. They might even be in a disadvantageous position in trying to get the other person to understand what they’re talking about.

So, you’re not that old. Do you think given that you work primarily with two rather small languages that what you’re doing at the moment will see you through to retirement? Which one’s going to die first, you or the language?

Michael Stormbom
I guess that depends on how many veggies I eat on a daily basis. No, but, I do think companies want to be able to speak in the language of their customers. At the end of the day, yeah, I mean, it kind of it comes down to what we talked previously about the consumer experience or the customer experience.

Ian Bowie
Yes, yeah. Although, having said that, if we think about the service industry, so we think about restaurants, bars, hotels. What I’ve actually noticed here in Finland, is that you are increasingly being served by people who actually don’t speak Finnish.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, no, indeed. I have noticed the same.

Ian Bowie
Yeah. Yeah. And I suspect eventually that’s going to start creeping into other areas of the service industry, shops.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah no, I fully agree absolutely.

Ian Bowie
Yeah. Yeah. So I think again, that that, possibly, I mean, yes, of course, Finland is in terms of age demographic, it’s quite an old country. So you know, as long as we have all these older people who don’t particularly necessarily speak English, then of course it’s going to be highly relevant to be able to communicate with them in Finnish, but I suspect the younger generation don’t really care. In fact, I mean, I’ve talked to younger people, and I remember some time ago, my son actually had a German girlfriend, and she didn’t speak any Finnish. But she had a hotel and catering background. And she was wondering about her possibilities for getting a job in a restaurant or a bar or even a hotel reception. And I started asking people you know, how important to you? Is it that when you go to a restaurant, or to a hotel that the staff speak Finnish? And I had a 100% couldn’t care.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, no, I mean, I can I can fully believe that. Certainly, I don’t care.

Ian Bowie
There you go, you see, so So basically, anybody under the age of 40 probably doesn’t really care if they’reserved in English or or or in Finnish.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah. Um, and, of course, personally, I speak English better than I speak Finnish.

Ian Bowie
Yeah, but you’re an exception because you come from that funny little island between Sweden and Finland, don’t you sir?

Michael Stormbom
Yes. But in terms of, of lingua franca, I would propose emojis.

Ian Bowie
And they’re not energy intensive.

Michael Stormbom
No, they’re quite compact, quite compact. Yes.

Ian Bowie
Yeah. I think or I suspect emojis might have a slightly limited use in terms of overall communicative efficacy, but…

Michael Stormbom
There may be some challenges in terms of…

Ian Bowie
but the basics, yes. I am hungry. I would like another drink, please. etc. But perhaps communicating…

Michael Stormbom
Isn’t it how written language evolved in the first place?

Ian Bowie
Yeah, well, of course it was. Yeah. Written or drawn emojis. Absolutely.

Michael Stormbom
So we just sort of going back to the roots in a way.

Ian Bowie
Yeah, yeah. Well, we’ve got tablets again, and we’re using them. Yeah, they’re not made of stone this time. They’re electronic. Yeah, I agree. Definitely.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai