In our increasingly globalized online world, having translation tools that are easily accessible and do their job at a reasonable level is essential for communicating across borders, cultures and languages. For native speakers of languages such as English and Spanish, these tools are now quite advanced. However, the less a language is spoken around the world, the less the rate at which native speakers of those languages can benefit from these tools.
This is where Meta’s No Language Left Behind project, a project to create an artificial intelligence model that can translate more and more languages, including less spoken languages, comes into play. In the statement made by the technology giant, it was reported that the AI model, first announced in March, can now translate 200 languages.
Describing it as an “AI superpower”, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post that this power will not only be used in Meta’s different products and services, but will also be available on github for everyone to use.
Leaving No Language Behind technology can be immediately implemented on currently available Meta social platforms. However, company researchers believe the tool’s biggest advantage will emerge in the metaverse.
“Billions of people worldwide don’t have access to a technology or translation service that really works well for their language,” said Angela Fan, meta AI research scientist, in a video produced by the company. “We really hope that the technology we’re developing will make metadata inclusive by design.”