The AI Revolution Is Crushing Thousands of Languages
Technology English is the internet’s primary tongue—a fact that may have unexpected consequences as generative AI becomes central to daily life. April 12, 2024 Recently, Bonaventure Dossou learned of an alarming tendency in a popular AI model. The program described Fon—a language spoken by Dossou’s mother and millions of others in Benin and neighboring countries—as “a fictional language.” This result, which I replicated, is not unusual. Dossou is accustomed to the feeling that his culture is