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The giant leaps in language technology — and who’s left behind | Kalika Bali

Visit to get our entire library of TED Talks, transcripts, translations, personalized talk recommendations and more. Thousands of languages thrive across the globe, yet modern speech technology — with all of its benefits — supports just over a hundred. Computational linguist Kalika Bali dreams of a day when technology acts as a bridge instead of…

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Visit to get our entire library of TED Talks, transcripts, translations, personalized talk recommendations and more.

Thousands of languages thrive across the globe, yet modern speech technology — with all of its benefits — supports just over a hundred. Computational linguist Kalika Bali dreams of a day when technology acts as a bridge instead of a barrier, working passionately to build new and inclusive systems for the millions who speak low-resource languages. In this perspective-shifting talk, she outlines what happens when a language is omitted from the digital landscape — and what can be gained when communities keep pace with the future.

The TED Talks channel features the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world’s leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes (or less). Look for talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design — plus science, business, global issues, the arts and more. You’re welcome to link to or embed these videos, forward them to others and share these ideas with people you know.

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55 Comments

55 Comments

  1. jess

    April 26, 2021 at 4:45 pm

    this is so interesting

    • Vansh Joshi

      April 26, 2021 at 4:47 pm

      First listen

    • Z P

      April 26, 2021 at 4:50 pm

      You didn’t even watch the video at all haha.

  2. bravojr

    April 26, 2021 at 4:51 pm

    Giant Leaps… in Censorship.

  3. rachuri sairam

    April 26, 2021 at 4:54 pm

    Awesome

  4. GhoulCODM

    April 26, 2021 at 4:55 pm

    This channel is so dead but has pretty interesting content

    • Fred Dobbs

      April 26, 2021 at 9:48 pm

      *occasionally

  5. Gaasuba Meskhenet

    April 26, 2021 at 4:55 pm

    We’re building a dystopia just to make people click on ads – TED
    Why facial recognition is so dangerous – second thought
    Reference Man – Full frontal with Samantha Bee

  6. Stephen Catton

    April 26, 2021 at 4:55 pm

    You have just described how all new technologies have developed…. and then new tools come along to make it easier for others to use

    • J lc,

      April 27, 2021 at 12:20 am

      what about tikala masal from india

  7. FIX DIY

    April 26, 2021 at 4:56 pm

    Thank you ted

  8. Brajeswar Das

    April 26, 2021 at 5:02 pm

    why focus so much on dying languages. Let these languages die and let them adapt to the mainstream languages .why focus on dividing languages further?

    • Mehak Maini

      April 26, 2021 at 5:12 pm

      Because languages are not just words. They are related with some communities. They are identification of those communities which do not deserve to die atleast.
      A language that our grandparents or our ancestors spoke is surely precious for us. That’s why it is essential to keep the languages alive to never forget the root of a community.

    • Arvin Rao

      April 26, 2021 at 6:27 pm

      The diversity of various languages add so much to the colour of life. It portrays how different communities around the world communicate in their own unique way. These languages should not die and must be preserved.

      Plus you never know, these languages may also help form links to the past, by discovering how they evolved we can get a clearer picture of where we came from and may also help us decipher previously older languages.

      Look back at the Rosetta stone, if the Greek language was not preserved and remembered we would not had been able to understand the demotic or the hieroglyph writings and this would cause us to lose so much information regarding egyptian history

    • Sujoy Sarkar

      April 26, 2021 at 6:39 pm

      Because your name does not have meaning in English but its meaningful in your mother tounge … And that’s true for many other concepts…

    • Fussfackel

      April 26, 2021 at 8:11 pm

      You are right and this is natural selection applied to languages and cultures. There is no need in investing to preserve dying artifacts.

    • Fred Dobbs

      April 26, 2021 at 9:50 pm

      @Sujoy Sarkar , that’s why we have calques and loan words.

    • Imran

      April 27, 2021 at 1:03 pm

      Amen

  9. MD TALKIES

    April 26, 2021 at 5:04 pm

    Nice one 👍

  10. SONAL SINHA

    April 26, 2021 at 5:06 pm

    Awesome

  11. Nemesis Brzeczyszczykiewicz

    April 26, 2021 at 5:07 pm

    Microsoft sellout.

  12. Jesse Rayne

    April 26, 2021 at 5:07 pm

    The sad irony is that this needs a more effective speaker to relay the information to regular wealthy Americans whom they hope will fund their projects. Every time a proper name is used or a place is referred to all the people im showing this to stop hearing. And it takes several moments for them to refocus based solely on the pressure they feel from me to understand. Please remake this with a stand in so stupid rich people can give you money to help.

    • Jesse Rayne

      April 26, 2021 at 5:09 pm

      There is an echo in the room as well so the recording plays very poorly on the phone.

  13. Curious Merlin

    April 26, 2021 at 5:07 pm

    The sad irony is that this needs a more effective speaker to relay the information to regular wealthy Americans whom they hope will fund their projects. Every time a proper name is used or a place is referred to all the people im showing this to stop hearing. And it takes several moments for them to refocus based solely on the pressure they feel from me to understand. Please remake this with a stand in so stupid rich people can give you money to help.

    • Curious Merlin

      April 26, 2021 at 5:09 pm

      There is an echo in the room as well so the recording plays very poorly on the phone.

  14. rachuri sairam

    April 26, 2021 at 5:09 pm

    Why don’t you use public open platform Koo app indian twitter text to speech and increase NLP process increase as it has 23 indian languages and people daily kooing in the app

    • Rumford Chimpenstein

      April 26, 2021 at 10:34 pm

      because she works for Microsoft

    • James Villasin

      April 27, 2021 at 12:56 pm

      Maybe because they would still need to buy those data from the app company, which is most likely expensive

  15. rachuri sairam

    April 26, 2021 at 5:09 pm

    I’m excited about sanskrit

  16. Puja Wahi

    April 26, 2021 at 6:08 pm

    This was great to learn about. I’m sceptical that many languages will survive into the future. Most of us will end up using English as the default language. It is sad because other languages have a lot of beauty and depth of feeling to offer. But just like we’ve moved away from our indeginious clothes and the whole world dresses the same, we’ll move away from languages too. Globalization and the internet will make us a homogenous global race.

  17. Stefan Nikola

    April 26, 2021 at 7:53 pm

    Very interesting Thank you for your work.

  18. Mr Paul

    April 26, 2021 at 8:29 pm

    The top translated website on the world wide web is in 1030 languages. What is it? and how many languages is the 2nd placed site in?

    • SweetEscape1212

      April 27, 2021 at 12:03 pm

      The top is jw dot org. The second is Wikipedia at 321.

  19. Din Subterán

    April 26, 2021 at 8:56 pm

    she’s like the teacher in south park…mkai?
    interesting dough.

  20. dragonlover3

    April 26, 2021 at 9:39 pm

    Awesome awesome

  21. pimpciak

    April 26, 2021 at 10:11 pm

    Great, just need robots to understand what we say. Who is asking for this? What sort of spy agency?

  22. Rumford Chimpenstein

    April 26, 2021 at 10:32 pm

    another microsoft commercial

  23. ck

    April 26, 2021 at 10:39 pm

    This talk is not really about the leaps in new technology in natural language processing (NLP), but the **applications** of current NLP technology to the less-resourced languages and under-served communities.

  24. J lc,

    April 27, 2021 at 12:20 am

    these ted talks have been very africany, very reptitive, very technical-specific, im unimpressed by all lets pop this whole ted crap into the bin

  25. Bijan Teimourian

    April 27, 2021 at 1:12 am

    Is it true that american army has photoelectron weapon that has an effect on brain?( x-ray laser capable of conveying electron )

  26. L R

    April 27, 2021 at 2:47 am

    My appreciation💕
    NLP means Neuro Linguistic Programming (not natural language processing)

    • Prerak Mann

      April 27, 2021 at 5:22 am

      Can’t it be both?

    • L R

      April 27, 2021 at 7:33 am

      @Prerak Mann Maybe something is needed to fix misunderstanding (not explaining all of it every time)

    • Kara Jenkins

      May 1, 2021 at 2:04 pm

      2 separate yet similar avenues and subject matter fields. One is used with AI and data gathering for machine learning. The other is a tool for life coaches that does not require certification nor licensing. That is my opinion, I need to look into that though.

  27. Stefan Nikola

    April 27, 2021 at 4:44 am

    Very interesting. Thank you for your work.

    • Brock Asa

      April 30, 2021 at 11:43 pm

      A trick: watch series on flixzone. Been using it for watching lots of of movies lately.

    • Matthias Musa

      April 30, 2021 at 11:54 pm

      @Brock Asa definitely, I’ve been watching on Flixzone for years myself 😀

  28. Nicole Savioz

    April 27, 2021 at 5:55 am

    Giant leaps in technical advancement and steps backwards in human interaction, human connection and empathy. Positive social and human impact should be the start and the objective of any technology projects, shouldn’t it?

  29. Midas

    April 27, 2021 at 8:31 am

    cant wait when AI will create new normal language for humans, without exceptions or weird grammar rules.

  30. No Ge

    April 27, 2021 at 9:27 am

    I don’t like neo liberalism. “Human rights” are destroyed all over the world and we care about controlling science. Breaks my heart. Please take a “giant leap” away from me and my family you knowledgehungry, ignorant, lightheaded ideologists. Shame on our species… more hemorrhoid than human…

    Edit: otherwise pretty interesting video tho 👌👌👌

  31. I understand Life

    April 27, 2021 at 1:24 pm

    Your attire looks messy . Your hair looks messy . Your language looks messy so is your content ..

  32. I understand Life

    April 27, 2021 at 1:32 pm

    Utter non sense . Why should a woman who is a farmer have to use your app and acknowledge your work in the first place when her children doesn’t have proper access to education that is bare essential .. how does ted publish such non sense inventions

  33. VIPUL YADAV

    April 27, 2021 at 1:39 pm

    I am thankful for the people like you, who are working on elimination of language barriers

  34. Hii all

    April 28, 2021 at 11:10 am

    thanks for speaking about natural language processing and not connecting it to women empowerment.

  35. Mohamed Kimo

    April 28, 2021 at 11:46 am

    What is her country that woman seems Indian

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