Hi there,
I am just interested to see what are your opinion on how A.I. is changing the landscape of language learning?
Would you believe that one day, A.I. would replace our need to learn a language?
Cheers,
Ivan
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Sawubona ivany78 / Hi ivany78 !
Great question!
I think that A.I. can really go a far way in using language and expressing idea’s and thoughts in them, but to truly speak and use language in an organic way - the way that humans do, will never be truly possible for any A.I. entity. As a christian I take the meaning of language to reside in the human soul, and the different sounds that make up a language - in a way, to be in the human brain - formed by various neurological formations there. A.I. can never have a soul, so I deem any suspicion or fear that A.I. could replace language learning, as not being a possibility.
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So true. Language learning is an activity of the soul. The soul in search for connections, understanding and a place amongst the rest of the souls.
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Hello ivany78, I think that Artificial Intelligence could rather be used as an assistant of learning and reconstructing ancient and already dead languages. Languages are full of proverbs, dialects, metaphors, and interaction between people contains a lot of nonverbal communication as well. Perhaps A.I. will never understand those entirely. And of course sarcasm, which can be difficult to use correctly and understand, would be something only humans can handle.
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I really like LeimuL’s idea about AI reconstructing ancient languages.
As a specialist in ancient Indo-European linguistics I really wish for a computer capable of reconstructing most accurate Proto-Indo-European language. I am considering building a machine learning model that would reconstruct Latin by comparing Italic languages. If that works, I can imagine going further and analysing data taken from the earliest stage of every Indo-European language we know of.
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I do not want to disappoint you John_FK, however, the researchers from OpenAI, a San-Francisco based AI lab specialising in Natural Language Processing published a paper this year introducing their GPT-3 transformer model, which is capable of producing texts impossible to distinguish from those written by a human being. It is truly incredible!
Here is the link to the paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2005.14165.pdf
And here is one of very many reviews you can find on the internet with some example sentences written by GPT-3: https://towardsdatascience.com/gpt-3-the-first-artificial-general-intelligence-b8d9b38557a1
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Dear OlgaOlina,
Thank you for sharing this.
Looking forward to reading it - when I get the time.
I do not doubt that the “producing of texts impossible to distinguish from those written by a human being” is possible, some preliminary questions:
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Will the GPT-3 transformer model be able to compose poems that can move mother-tongue readers to tears?
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Will it be able to create its own interrelated metaphors in a discourse, to enrich the dialogue?
Et cetera.
Kind regards,
JFK Mulder
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Hi Olga,
What you have included is very interesting. A trained mechanical engineer, I learned the concepts of A.I by learning the mathematical concept behind it and I do believe languages is one of the most suitable to train neural networks as all languages generally have set rules with exceptions of course. Also, the neural network can be trained with very good materials seeing especially for languages with huge native speakers.
Would read the materials that you have shared definitely.
Thanks,
Ivan
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I think yes, AI will largely (even though not entirely) eliminate the need for language learning. Google Translate, in our everyday language a synonym for absurdly wrong translating, has in fact gotten so good in some languages, most notably Spanish and French, that you can quite successfully text chat with their native speakers by letting Google Translate translate your English text into the target language and then manually correct things like the lacking distintion between the familiar and formal “you”. The only downside is the awkward moment when the other person suggests a voice chat and I have to explain that I can’t really hold a conversation in that language. And, obviously, when you want to actually talk to someone in that language, you’ll still have to learn it – unless of course you both know English.
Also, the staggering improvements we can observe in machine translation will eventually leave a great number of human translators out of work, thereby greatly diminishing the need for language teaching on a professional level. Unfortunately, the explosive spread of machine-translated websites and such exposes our children on a daily basis to texts with bad grammar which they will actually perceive as correct, but, alas, I see no way of preventing it.
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Well said. I wonder if there is a way to harness these powers to our advantage. I presume the communication is the key but then again now days young folks communicate mainly through messaging and not speaking.
One great advantage is that people are less reluctant to communicate with people from other ethnic groups, because they 1) usually both speak English, and 2) even if they don’t speak English all that well, they can use online translators to understand each other. And getting to know each other better, they can easily become interested in actually learning each other’s languages. And the abundance of language learning resources on the Internet makes the task of language learning a lot less frightening.
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Does Artificial Intelligence mean the end of learning math?
Does Artificial Intelligence mean the end of learning to make music?
Does Artificial Intelligence mean the end of humanity?
I think “Artificial Intelligence” is often posed in many unhelpful ways in questions.
In my opinion, a better question would be – How can Artificial Intelligence be used to help humans learn languages more effectively? Can Artificial Intelligence be used to help people who are traveling and don’t speak another language? Or can AI help people who are looking for a quick translation of a website in a language they can’t read?
I think the answer is certainly! Artificial Intelligence is already very helpful, and will definitely become more useful over time.
However, saying that Artificial Intelligence will completely replace our need to learn a language, seems to miss part of the point of learning a language. People do not study Japanese (or Chinese or Arabic, etc.) only because there isn’t a good enough Google Translate. People who travel to another country to immerse themselves in another culture are not hoping to entirely skip this part of the experience. I think they find meaning in the journey.
If you believe that AI will end the need or desire for language learning, then I would suggest spending your time thinking more about the bigger question of what do you think humans will want to or even be able to do at that time?
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I think it will be so difficult at least for certain langs like my mother tongue in Arabic so let’s say if arabic is going to be involved in this A.I project because arabic have its standard version(msa) and then a lot of different dialects that’s a reason and the other reason i think that A.i won’t lead a natural conversation maybe it can be useful in chatting or writing text but when it comes to a natural conversation with a friend for example you imagined it i don’t really think it would be fun because A.I translation could be wrong like google translate sometimes and then ur friend is going to wait until u get the best translation for him and that’s only for 1 sentence it will be boring right?
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I very much like thinking about the ways in which machine learning can help us learn languages. 
AI able to identify learning patterns for each individual and then adapting to their needs, for instance introducing new vocabulary or grammar points when one can learn best. Or AI providing constant feedback outside the classroom. AI providing personalised textbooks. AI providing interactive vocabulary practice. And so on…
And I do not think that there will be no need for language teachers or translators. Their role will change with teachers acting as mentors providing students with the necessary support and translators doing less repetitive tasks, instead concentrating on difficult (and also more exciting) problems while the routine tasks will be done by computers.
At best: while computers do the job, language experts have more free time to learn even more different languages 
I would love to continue this conversation. If you feel the same, find me on Twitter @idiomarium or on linkedIn: Olga Olina
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Sorry I am joining this discussion late. But this topic is really cool and totally love all the answers here.
Although I don’t believe AI will replace human intelligence any time soon, let alone be able to communicate in, understand, and translate languages meticulously, I can see this becoming a reality in the far future.
We can see that throughout history, various inventions were introduced to our lives, when humans never thought of those as even being possible.
From inventing the wheel, to modern electric cars, to future plans of genetically engineering human organs, with a plan to use them as replacement and an ultimate goal of eliminating medicine and treatments, etc… none of that was even heard of at one point in time.
I would not be surprised if in the far future, we will witness AI surpass our language abilities and perhaps even create their own that we will not be able to understand.
Additionally, I am thinking maybe AI might even help humans in one way or another become language geniuses. Who knows…
Zeina
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Hallo Zeina, wie geht’s? Kaifa haluk?
The artificial intelligence will never replace the natural language learning process. Us, as humans, can decode the language in our head, as the elements of the language grammar can be easily computable. (My presentation as a speaker in the Polyglot Conference talks about that.). But learning a language is not only math or memorizing or programming or language coding and decoding. It’s more than that. it’s culture. It’s food. To eat, to drink, to dance and to make love with the languages. So getting actively involved in a community who speaks that language and who lives that culture, it’s a much natural process.
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AI has already begun replacing journalists. It is estimated by 2025 that 90% of media will be written by bots. If you read about emergencies that have happened in the last year, you will have read a bot written article.
Can they write poems that emote? Here is an AI poem (https://www.newyorker.com/culture/annals-of-inquiry/the-mechanical-muse)
People picking up electric chronic.
The balance like a giant tidal wave,
Never ever feeling supersonic,
Or reaching any very shallow grave.
An open space between awaiting speed,
And looking at divine velocity.
A faceless nation under constant need,
Without another curiosity.
Or maybe going through the wave equation.
An ancient engine offers no momentum,
About the power from an old vibration,
And nothing but a little bit of venom.
Surrounded by a sin Omega T,
On the other side of you and me.
AI will most definitely be able to do this sort of thing, and better and better. They will definitely be able to translate effectively, because they learn from us at a rate far faster.
If you want to get a glimpse of the future, look at some of Elon Musk’s info. He is both interested and scared of an AI future, and says “if we regulate who can have nuclear weapons, we should definitely be regulating AI”… and sees quite a danger. Unfortunately, we have a very unregulated environment for AI - , so we should all be concerned for what is happening, and very cautious. AI is here. It isn’t going to disappear. But we really need to be aware, and be asking for close supervision of the field.
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Matias ana bi khair - shukran!
You know I used to think the same, but I recently watched a YouTube video about someone having a conversation with a robot. It changed that whole idea in my mind.
Here check it out - this is as creepy as it is insane btw 
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I couldn’t agree more. I think - although it might seem a bit imaginative - that humans will get to a point where they will not be able to control AI anymore.
What makes me really think that is the fact that recent programming of robots or machines has been focused on giving them the ability to acquire, use, and share information amongst each other.
It is like we are blindly building a small army of machines that will eventually be able to carry on conversations - maybe even complex operations - without needing any human’s input/regulation.
THAT is definitely something I see getting out of hand in the future.
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Also how AI can be opened to abuse by those who knows how to control it, at least while they can.