Mila > First Languages AI Reality (FLAIR) Initiative

First Languages AI Reality (FLAIR) Initiative


 

Background

Nearly 50% of the world’s Indigenous and about 90% of North American languages are endangered, according to UNESCO. To stem this loss, Indigenous communities need a game-changing approach to language education. The First Languages AI Reality (FLAIR) initiative is being created to enable the next chapter in Indigenous language reclamation thanks to the use of advanced immersive AI technology. 

 

Vision

Imagine an inclusive Metaverse where Indigenous youth across North America reconnect with their heritage. In this Metaverse Lakota hunters use their mother tongue to coordinate a bison hunt in the Great Plains. To the west, Makah canoes cross the Salish Sea to a community reunion with Kwak̓wala speakers and ask permission to come ashore on their Canoe Journey. We are convinced that Voice AI will be intrinsic to the Metaverse experience which in turn can facilitate intergenerational language transmission for Indigenous languages.

To achieve this vision we need to first develop the foundations for Indigenous Voice AI. This foundational automatic speech recognition (ASR) research will initially focus on the Wakashan language family spanning British Columbia, Canada and Washington State, USA. The long-term objective is to expand to other Indigenous languages in North America, such as Algonquin languages in the Northeast, eventually bringing Voice AI to Indigenous communities worldwide and positioning them to participate in the Metaverse through Voice AI in their heritage languages.

Project Description

FLAIR’s goal is to develop a method for rapid creation of custom ASR models for Indigenous languages. The development of ASR for a new language or domain typically requires the collection of hundreds of hours of data. For many Indigenous languages, this is usually infeasible, because there are at most a few dozen living first language speakers. Further, when recorded audio exists, it is either not transcribed or inaccessible. Thus, a method to decrease the number of hours of data required would be very helpful. We are proposing a multifaceted approach that could reduce the data requirements drastically. The immediate focus of this project is to identify solutions for a specific set of Indigenous languages in North America, but we anticipate that the resulting system for rapid ASR development will solve similar problems for the thousands of languages used by other under-resourced/underserved speech communities around the world.

Related Video: Why First Languages AI Can Be a Reality

FLAIR’s Technical Director, Michael Running Wolf, presented his vision of the project at a recent TEDx event held in Boston.

Team

The FLAIR initiative is led by Michael Running Wolf (technical lead) and Caroline Running Wolf (program director). The activities are also made possible thanks to the collaboration of multiple AI students and language culture consultants.

Michael Running Wolf (Northern Cheyenne/Lakota/Blackfeet) was raised in a rural prairie village in Montana with intermittent water and electricity; naturally, he has a Master’s of Science in Computer Science, is a former engineer for Amazon’s Alexa, former faculty at Northeastern University, and is pursuing a PhD in CS at McGill University. Michael is researching Indigenous language and culture reclamation using immersive technologies (AR/VR) and artificial intelligence. His work has been awarded an MIT Solve Fellowship, the Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, and the Patrick McGovern AI for Humanity Prize. Through the ethical application of AI and advanced technology respecting Indigenous ways of knowing, he is contributing to the ecology of thought represented by the Indigenous.

Caroline Running Wolf, born Old Coyote, is a citizen of the Crow Nation. Caroline is a language activist, XR producer, educator, administrator. Caroline is currently pursuing her PhD at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, BC. Her research explores potential applications of immersive technologies (AR/VR/XR) and artificial intelligence to effectively enhance Indigenous language and culture reclamation. She is also passionate about Indigenous data sovereignty and AI ethics.

Partner

Contact

For any inquiry about the project, please communicate with Josée Poirier, Senior Project Manager for FLAIR on Mila’s AI for Humanity team, at josee.poirier@mila.quebec.