What it means to build local AI

SINGAPORE – Following OpenAI’s public launch of ChatGPT in November 2022, the underpinnings of AI large language models seemed firmly “WIRED”: Western, industrialized, rich, educated, and democratic. Everyone assumed that if LLMs spoke a particular language and reflected a particular worldview, it would be a Western one. OpenAI even acknowledged ChatGPT’s skew toward Western views and the English language. But even before OpenAI’s U.S. competitors (Google and Anthropic) released their own LLMs the following year, Southeast Asian developers had recognized the need for AI tools that would speak to their own region in its many languages – no small task, given that more than 1,200 languages are spoken here. Moreover, in a region where distant civilizational memories often collide with contemporary, post-colonial histories, language is profoundly political. Even seemingly mono-lingual countries belie marked diversity: Cambodians speak nearly 30 languages; Thais, roughly 70; and Vietnamese, over 100. This is also a region where communities mix languages seamlessly, where nonverWeiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Korea Times Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Korea Times