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Jun 2012 min read

Language Unleashed: Love, AI, and Breaking Barriers

Updated: Sep 25



Uncover the groundbreaking ways AI and new technologies are transforming how we communicate. We explore the future of language, sharing real-world stories from AI tools that bridge language gaps in romance to brain-computer interfaces giving voice to those who cannot speak. We discuss the future of language learning and ponder whether advanced translation tools might reduce the incentive to learn new languages, and how this could impact cultural and linguistic diversity. Join us to discover how these shifts might redefine the way we understand and use language in our daily lives in the future.





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Episode Transcript:

This transcript was computer-generated and human-edited and might contain errors. 


Raakhee: Welcome to Signal Shift by Horizon Shift Lab. We’re your hosts, Lana Price, Raakhee Natha and Sue Chi. Each episode, we explore the latest signals -- in technology, culture, and society-- uncovering insights that will impact our daily lives in the future. Join us as we shift perspectives, explore possibilities, and delve into real changes in our world. Curious to learn more - go to horizonshiftlab.com.


Today we are delving into the concept of language in the future. And again, that's pretty broad. It's whichever angle we want to take that from. So I will hand it off to Sue and Lana, and who wants to delve in first.


Lana: I was thinking about a story that I just read. This is from the New York Times, called “When A.I. Bridged a Language Gap, They Fell in Love.” 


This is about a couple where the man spoke English and the woman spoke Spanish, and they were set up on a blind date. They really hit it off, felt like they had some chemistry, and so they wanted to continue to get to know each other. And how they used different AI tools to communicate and to learn more about each other. And so even beyond kind of Google translate, they talked about how he used this app, which is called Captions, which allowed him to record videos; but in the video, it would both do a lip dub -- dub his lips -- and add subtitles, in Spanish.


So he could just speak in English, but the video would translate it into Spanish including with subtitles. And so they use things like that and they had these earbuds, which they have, I guess a two-way translation in real-time, so that as one person is speaking the other person can hear a translation of it. And just this article is about how they've developed this romance and this way to communicate with each other and even as far as when he asked her grandmother for permission to get married how he was using these apps to communicate in Spanish with her grandmother.

And that now they're learning each other's languages the old-fashioned way. Now they're married and together. 


And so I think part of why I was interested in this story is also my parents didn't speak the same language. English is my mom's second language, and so just thinking about the evolution of technology and how it can help us foster these connections with each other where we're sort of eliminating a barrier in some way. But I think it doesn't take away, it just complements the fact that -- I mean if you do want to learn a language you still have to do that hard work. Yeah, so I just thought that was an interesting evolution making a language more accessible and yeah, even in romance, too.


Sue: I love that. It's so silly I am such a sucker for those “Lost In Translation” type of comedic moments where someone’s trying to convey their feelings and they’re saying it all wrong in another language. So there's a bit of me like -- oh they won't have that, but I guess they would in person. But yeah that you can apply that AI in so many other contexts. So to have this come out in a place where there's like feelings and life decisions on the line, is just evidence of how quickly ingrained AI has become in our lives.


Raakhee: Yeah, it’s so endearing. I think you mentioned it. It's like technology can be very complementary to fostering human relationships. I think that's the question we all sit with. Where’s it going to take us? And now they're living together, so they've got to learn the old-fashioned way. I think the question that comes up for me is -- do you think with the tools we're going to have, if we have an earpiece that can translate for me when I'm traveling, are we going to stop learning languages because they’re simply accessible?


Lana: I did actually read a commentary that said that it used to be a sign of sort of intellect and kind of your international sort of standing if you could be like, “Oh and I speak multiple languages.” Right, it’s something that people really held in high regard. And so in some ways, it makes that less special because now everyone has some tools where they can communicate and not just the majority languages spoken in the world but even some hundreds of languages that now we have more access to. So, in response to that question, I have heard that that's one implication. 


I think another potential negative implication, especially with regard to the video app, is just -- it isn't actually you and me talking. The app is in between, right, where it's saying something on your behalf. You might even use a filter, right? It's dubbing your mouth and they're adding subtitles. So we don't have that benefit of having subtitles, right, when we're talking to each other. So I don't know; there's something about maybe authenticity.


[6:47]


Sue: That's so true. There's also how the AI is getting the translation. Because as often as we've used Google Translator now, there are like Netflix or so many streaming services that do auto-dubbing and translation and I'll see something in a Korean show and I'll see the English translation. I'm like -- that is not what that means. And so they probably still have a long way to go.


And so you're right, in one way, the incentive to just learn another language is probably low if you're using it to go travel somewhere or something like that. Probably the folks who still want to show off their intellect will still use it as a means of credibility or something like that. I don't know that a place like the United Nations would altogether get rid of interpreters in such a high-stakes place. So they're probably still places like that. But yeah, I think in the day-to-day this could be interesting. That it could bring back so many other languages we don't hear anymore. But yeah, AI still has a while to go till it gets it right. 


Yeah, actually this kind of is related to your signal because one of the things I was wondering was how AI language translation can capture, I don't know if this is the right term for it, but paralinguistics, or just the feelings and emotions that come with different words and terms in languages, right? 


So I saw also in the New York Times, there was an interview -- a call for requests from high school students of how they use different languages at home, how it makes them feel, all of these things. And they had kids who also spoke Russian, Spanish, Farsi, Cantonese, and a couple of other languages as well, and just talked about how now it's a sense of pride that they can speak these other languages. One of them said, “It's cool because now I can flex at school.” Which I thought was really funny. To me, that was a big change because growing up I was bilingual and then my school teachers told me I should only speak English; that it was too confusing for me. And it's still something I really regret to this day, that I wasn't able to use Korean the way I could have, and I'm not fluent as a result. So I've had to work so hard to try to understand Korean.


Anyway, long story short, it made me think about what kids are like now in the digital age, and how on these platforms they have friends from all over the world using these kind of dubbing and subtitling services and auto-translation services and -- what would happen if you translated that to school, so you don't necessarily need to be confined by your geography as a place of school, but more as a global classroom where even the teacher does not need to know all the languages. They just need the service to translate in real-time the concepts. What if then you went to school with all people from around the world? How would that increase our empathy for each other? Would that make better diplomats? Who in the future make better strategic decisions? Who knows. 


But yeah, so I was just thinking about if you did that, what would you miss in a classroom? And to me there's something about the feeling of these different language phrases that might get missed in translation. There's a couple of keywords, I know in Korean, for example, that there's no perfect translation in English. And I'm sure the same is true of English to some other languages as well. And so it made me wonder, in the future, is there an AI service that brings along, I don't know, some kind of sensor… I'm not really sure, imagery that comes with it, when you're talking about certain phrases. So there’s almost, if that happens, there's got to be a separate language class, which is about the emotive piece of language that comes with it.


Lana: Yeah, I mean I'm thinking about slang, like slang differs by region. It differs over time, a word is a word that we use right now, or a word that we used 10 years ago. Maybe we don't say, “That's the bomb” anymore. So I still do sometimes, okay. And just there's so much color in phrases and so yeah, I think part of me is like -- oh, that's so cool, this idea of a global classroom. But then yeah, maybe a potential for a flattening of language, where we're going to kind of a lowest common denominator of simplicity in the way that we speak, so that it can be translated and not misconstrued. So yeah, I see it as being both inclusive yet we still have to retain that feeling, like you’re saying.


Sue: And kids are gonna be kids. They’re going to figure out how to trick the translation system. They're going to figure out how to trick the teacher. There could be so many other kinds of hijinks happening as well. So yeah, lots to figure out.


Raakhee: Right, I think the minute you were speaking, I thought of also the concept of “loss for words.” And no matter what language you speak, there's always that moment. Whether it's happy or sad, and so interesting if this device somehow can communicate to the next person what you're feeling. Like I know in grief, you can never truly express to anyone and so it's so hard to support somebody's grieving, right, and would there be an AI bridge that helps in those moments? Sue, and I loved the vision of what you said about schools. And just about the empathy and how English was used as a barrier, right, for all of us.


Growing up in South Africa… And when I grew up in South Africa, we were just coming out of apartheid in South Africa when I was little, but it was still very much when I was still young with my first couple of years, so I probably saw less of it, but knew of it, and Afrikaans was the mandatory language that we all had to learn. English and Afrikaans. And yet none of us have a connection to that language, but there was no choices, there was no options. And so interesting, yeah, just thinking about that and either you held back from learning your cultural language or language was forced upon you. And what's interesting is that English, soon, is not going to be the only majority language in the world. Right? So many others that are pretty much almost there. So you won't be able to say it's English is the dominant language. It's gonna be English and Chinese and Spanish and Hindi. It's like, interesting where that's gonna be in the future, but I'll jump into my signal, it’s a short one.


[14:26] 


It's an interesting concept. I think also on the theme of, I think we went from using a different language kind of emotions to my one being about those who can't speak. So, using brain-computer interfaces, a company called BrainGate had a pretty good clinical trial with an ALS patient and they released the findings. Yeah, late part of last gen, last quarter. It was published, I think, in Nature, and a couple of other places, and you can actually get the scientific paper, but the article is in Nature. They had a positive sort of clinical trial with this patient using sort of implants and sort of readers on the brain that can detect the neural activity and translate that into speech on a computer or something, typical brain-computer interface, but he hasn't lost his voice yet, but he is probably going to with ALS.


And yeah, hopefully, I mean, it looks really positive. The reading speed wasn't quite close to where we are. The talking speed, like the cognition, that was happening, but it's more than halfway there. Which from what I'm reading is very very encouraging, very positive. So, I think in the future that's definitely going to be a solution for those who can't speak. Their brains will still speak, and the device will speak what their brains are thinking anyway.


Sue: Yeah, I'm so curious with the cognition. What does it manifest -- can you hear it? Is it in the person's voice before, in their speaking voice when they were able to speak more fluently? I'm just curious what that sounds like.


Raakhee: I know right now it's going to like a device, like an iPad or something. So it's coming out as written text. I don't know if they are working on something where it will come out through audio. I think primarily those studies right now typically are written text. So it's just interfacing, and it's basically just interjecting signals. So your brain has a thought, it’s a signal, it goes typically to our voice box. But it's being interjected now, and so instead of going to your voice box because you can't use that, and its signal will die there. It goes in essence then to an iPad computer something, the text shows up on the screen.


Lana: That's wild. I think one thing that I'm thinking is, there's a lot of stuff in my brain that I don't say out loud. So I think I'd be horrified. Like oh no, I need to be able to edit.


Sue: It's so true.


Lana: There's no filter. So I'll be a little scared. I'm good. Yeah, so crazy to think that this is where we are now in terms of going straight from your brain to action.


Sue: My gosh, I was just thinking, what other applications could this technology have if it worked beyond just the human brain. Could they do this with animals? Animals have cognition. So some of the ones that have been documented of being very intelligent, having their own language, I'm curious what that would actually be like, but Lana to your point. I was just thinking in a very silly case. How could I talk to my dogs? They have no filter whatsoever. So what would that look like?


Raakhee: How will we filter? We'll know too much. It's almost like social media's too much, right, we already like, enough. And now it’ll be like -- we can all know what’s happening in each other's mind, it’s like having that superpower. Will we go insane? 


[18:18]


Does anyone want to summate how you’re feeling about the future of language and close us out for today?


Lana: Yeah, I mean I loved this topic because I have actually signed up to take a class in Spanish and study intensive Spanish and I've always identified as someone who's not good at language. I've tried to learn a couple of different languages and it's just hasn't been able to stick. And so part of me is like, okay is this… a lot of people talk about Duolingo, right, as something that's very accessible in a way that is helping them to learn. So I feel encouraged, that there's tools out there, and that it’s still worth trying. I don't want to give up on learning another language. And so yeah, hopefully, that it just makes it more accessible maybe in some way.


Sue: I'm really excited about the future of language. If anything today is showing me, it's that through all these different tools, these new customs that we’re developing through AI, language barriers are going to be able to go away and not be as big of a barrier; whether that's in business or communicating, people falling in love, right, doing all of these things. And so that to me is extremely encouraging that it may just make things more accessible and also in so doing value the language that you have, or maybe even uncover older ones that are no longer in use and maybe bring them back. So, I'm really excited about that.


Raakhee: Thank you both. I think there was a beautiful close to talking about language, and that's it. But in the future, animal communication is definitely on the agenda. So watch out for that, but thank you so much for being here and we will catch you again soon. Bye for now.


[20:32]

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