Meta introduced on Wednesday what it is calling the “first AI-powered speech translation system for an unwritten language,” in accordance to a weblog publish from the tech firm.
The system efficiently translated the Taiwanese language Hokkien, a primarily oral language spoken throughout Taiwan. The system was developed as a part of Meta’s synthetic intelligence undertaking referred to as Common Speech Translator, or UST.
“The interpretation system is the primary milestone for Meta AI’s Common Speech Translator undertaking, which focuses on creating AI programs that present real-time speech-to-speech translation throughout all languages, even primarily spoken ones,” Meta mentioned in a press release.
Most earlier AI-powered efforts for translating languages have centered on written language, Meta says, however certainly one of its objectives is to translate extra languages that lack a proper writing system. Based on Meta, there are greater than 7,000 residing languages, however “over 40% are primarily oral and don’t have a normal or extensively identified writing system like Hokkien.”
In a video announcement posted to Fb, Mark Zuckerberg mentioned Meta can be open-sourcing the instrument so folks can use the brand new AI system to translate extra languages.
