Computer scientist Pascale Fung can imagine a bright future in which AI helpers like ChatGPT bridge language barriers. In that world, Indonesian store owners fluent only in local dialects might reach new shoppers by listing their products online in English.
"It can open opportunities," Fung says—then pauses. She's spotted the bias (偏好) in her vision of a more interconnected future: The AI-aided shopping would be one-sided, because few Americans would bother to use AI translation to help research products advertised in Indonesian. Fung, director of the Center for AI Research at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, who herself speaks seven languages, sees this bias in her own field. Fung would like to see Al change that, not further strengthen the primary position of English.
Fung is part of a global community of AI researchers testing the language skills of ChatGPT and sounding the alarm about evidence that they are significantly less capable in languages other than English. "One of my biggest concerns is that we're going to exacerbate the bias for English and English speakers," says Thien Huu Nguyen, a University of Oregon computer scientist. "People are going to follow the norm (标准) and not think about their own identities or culture. It kills innovation."
The AI systems are good at translating other languages into English, but they struggle with rewriting English into other languages. Nguyen's study reports that tests on ChatGPT in March showed it performed substantially (基本上) worse at answering factual questions or summarizing complex text in non-English languages and was more likely to fabricate (捏造) information. "This is an English sentence, so there is no way to translate it to Vietnamese," the robot responded inaccurately to one question.
At a US conference, Senator Alex Padilla of California asked Sam Altman, CEO of ChatGPT's creator, OpenAI, which is based in the state, what his company is doing to close the language gap. About 44 percent of Californians speak language other than English. Padilla, who also speaks Spanish, is questioning about the systems delivering fair linguistic (语言的) outcomes without big shifts in strategies by their developers.
