Meta and UNESCO Unite to Break Language Barriers with AI Translation Initiative

Meta has announced a groundbreaking initiative aimed at transforming language translation technology through the launch of an open-source machine translation benchmark. This benchmark will assess the performance of language translation models. The initiative, known as the Language Technology Partner Program, seeks partners who can contribute over 10 hours of speech recordings with transcriptions, large volumes of written text, and sets of translated sentences in various languages. This effort aligns with Meta's mission to expand the linguistic capabilities of its AI-powered assistant, Meta AI.

In collaboration with UNESCO, Meta aims to gather diverse speech recordings and transcriptions to advance the development of future open-source artificial intelligence. The program primarily focuses on underserved languages, supporting UNESCO's objectives. The government of Nunavut, where residents speak the Inuktut language, is among the partners contributing to this effort. The benchmark, crafted by linguists and supporting seven languages, is accessible on the AI development platform Hugging Face, allowing widespread contribution.

Pilot features such as automatic translation for creators are under development as part of this initiative. This could significantly enhance content accessibility across platforms like Instagram Reels, where Meta recently began testing a voice translation tool. The program also addresses past criticisms, such as Facebook's handling of misinformation during the COVID pandemic, where Italian- and Spanish-language content was left largely unflagged compared to English-language misinformation.

Meta invites partners to collaborate with its AI teams to integrate more languages into AI speech recognition and translation models. Once finalized, these models will be open-sourced, ensuring broad access and continuous improvement.

“Ultimately, our goal is to create intelligent systems that can understand and respond to complex human needs, regardless of language or cultural background.” – Meta

The program's focus on diverse languages underscores its commitment to inclusivity and global communication. By leveraging partnerships and community contributions, Meta aims to bridge linguistic gaps and facilitate more inclusive digital interactions.