The Bible & AI | Translation Innovation Webinar
The Seed Company and ETEN Innovation Lab recently partnered to host an exclusive Bible Translation Innovation Webinar, and now we’re excited to share the recording with you! Originally offered to a select audience, this session dives deep into the evolving role of AI in Bible translation, highlighting both its potential and the critical role of human partnership.
In the webinar, our guest panelists explored a range of key questions, including:
How AI drafting is transforming the translation process and enhancing efficiency, viewing AI as a supportive tool rather than a replacement.
Mainstream AI tools, like ChatGPT and Google Translate, and the unique data requirements for Bible translation.
The balance between speed and quality, ensuring that translation remains grounded in quality and local church ownership.
Guest Panel:
Michael Martin - NLP Solution Architect, Scripture Forge & Serval Development, SIL Language Technology
Daniel Whitenack - Founder and CEO, Prediction Guard
Joel Mathew - Research Engineer at USC/ISI, ETEN Innovation Lab Critical Partner
Roger Hanna - Field Program Manager, Seed Company
James Cuénod - Senior AI Translation Technologist, Seed Company (Moderator)
Glossary of Key Terms
Here is a list of technical terms with definitions
Artificial Intelligence (AI): Artificial Intelligence, is the ability of computers and machines to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence, like learning, problem-solving, translating, and decision-making.
AI Drafting: Using artificial intelligence to generate initial drafts of text, such as Bible translations, by identifying and learning from patterns in large amounts of existing translated texts. The AI analyzes how words and phrases are commonly used and structured in the source and target languages to produce an initial draft following similar linguistic rules and conventions.
Low-resource language: It is a language with limited available resources for linguistic and translation work. This typically means that there is a lack of sufficient data, such as translated texts, digital corpora, dictionaries, and language tools, making it difficult to train AI models or conduct translations.
High-resource language: It is a language with abundant linguistic and translation resources. These include a wealth of data, such as extensive digital corpora, dictionaries, grammar guides, and numerous translated texts, making it easier to train AI models or conduct translations.
Training a Model: The process of teaching an AI system to perform a task (like translation) by feeding it large amounts of relevant data so it can learn patterns and improve over time.
ChapGPT: ChatGPT is an AI language model developed by OpenAI that can understand and generate human-like text based on the prompts it receives. This allows it to engage in conversations, answer questions, and assist with writing tasks.
Natural Language Processing (NLP): It is a branch of AI that enables computers to understand, interpret, and manipulate human language, allowing them to interact with and process text or speech in a meaningful and useful way.
No Language Left Behind: It is an AI model that can translate between 200 languages, including many that are not usually supported by current translation systems. This tool aims to help people who speak rare or less commonly used languages communicate better online, making the internet more inclusive. The model is also open-source, so anyone can use it.
Machine Translation (MT): Using a computer to translate text from one language to another.
Concepts or terms specific to the Bible translation context
Assisted Translation Technology (ATT): Imagine Bible translators who can work faster, produce more accurate and consistent translations and manage the workload more efficiently. That’s the power of ATT. These innovative tools and solutions support translators by checking their work, offering suggestions, and automating parts of the process, freeing them to focus on the nuances of conveying the Bible’s message with clarity and accuracy.
ATT isn’t here to replace human translators but to help them. It uses AI and machine learning to suggest improvements and automate repetitive tasks, but the final decisions and nuanced work stay firmly in human hands. This ensures translations perfectly capture the original text’s tone, style, and cultural meaning. This collaboration guarantees faithful translations that preserve the original text’s message.
Project Catapult: This initiative is dedicated to translation projects in languages not previously explored. Many of these are considered low-resource languages in terms of available language data.
Project Slingshot: Project Slingshot leverages technologies similar to Project Catapult to expedite Old Testament translations. It specifically fast-tracks Old Testament translations by building on the work already completed for the New Testament.
Draft 0: The very first version of a translation generated by AI, is typically rough and requires further refinement by human translators.