global task force about AI and interpreting

[Steph Kent]

Hi everyone,

fyi, the hearing world is setting up a task force to begin advocacy efforts around "Safe AI" rules for interpreting.

As far as I can tell, there's no representation of sign language interpreting organizations (RID? CIT? WASLI?)

The first public meeting this afternoon (Tuesday June 27, 3pm Eastern) is to see who wants to join this group. They already have an initial plan for the upcoming year. I pasted the entire "Call for Action" below.

Here's a 2-page essay arguing that community interpreting is the right goal for policy about how, when/why, where and for whom machine-generated translations can replace human interpreters. (If you help this article get traction it will make it more likely to become an influence - however tiny - on their agenda!)

If you're interested and/or can get this information to the right people in our organizations please let me know. I have registered to attend today's meeting.

sincerely,

steph

Interpreting Safe AI Task Force Work Group Announces Formation and Public Meeting

Friday, June 16, 2023   (1 Comments)
Posted by: Alison Kuhlow

INTERPRETING SAFE-AI TASK FORCE WORKGROUP ANNOUNCES FORMATION AND PUBLIC MEETING TO ADVANCE FAIR AND ETHICAL AI IN INTERPRETING INDUSTRY

A group of interpreting industry thought leaders has announced their proposal to form the "Interpreting SAFE AI Task Force Stakeholders Advocating for Fair and Ethical AI in Interpreting". The proposed mission for the task force is to establish, dissemin ate, and promote guidelines for the responsible adoption of AI in interpreting by facilitating dialogue among vendors, buyers, practitioners, end users, regulators, and other stakeholders.

The workgroup’s first step has been to organize an online launch me eting, which will take place on June 27. (Registration link below). The meeting is a call to action for all interpreting industry stakeholders interested in helping craft an initial response to AI’s impact on interpreting.

Once fully constituted, the task force will seek to identify and analyze key use cases of AI in a range of contexts, including conference, medical, legal, educational, and business settings Given the breakneck speed with which AI is disrupting interpreting, the task force’s goal will be to publish the survey results, including preliminary best practice recommendations, in Fall 2023.

“The Chinese adage, 'water can float or sink a boat' aptly describes technology's impact on the interpretation industry. The proposed task force aims to fa cilitate AI adoption that enhances, not hinders, our field ,” says industry veteran Winnie Heh of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies. “We look forward to working with a broad base of stakeholders with the goal of advancing language access and cross cultural communication.”

The workgroup is inviting the public to an online call to action meeting to be held at 12:00 PDT/14:00 CDT/15:00 EDT, on June 27, 2023. During the meeting, the workgroup will present their mission, launch an anonymous survey to select an initial structure of the task force, gather names of all those interested in participating and announce the date and time for the first official work meeting in July The survey results will guide the structure, membership, and format of the July meeting.

To register for the event, and for more information about the Interpreting SAFE AI Task Force, please visit
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_5iFb1NqOR VuzzEFa3OUPcA

We look forward to seeing you at our inaugural public meeting on June 27, 2023.

The initial workgroup proposing the formation of the task force includes

• Katharine Allen, Training Specialist, Boostlingo
• Carla Fogaren, RN, Vice President, National Council on Interpreting in Health Care
• Cody Francisco, CDI, Director, Deaf and Hard of Hearing Services, MasterWord Services, Inc.
• Ludmila Golovine, President & CEO, MasterWord Ser vices, Inc.
• Winnie Heh, Career Advisor, Middlebury Institute of International Studies
• Eliana Lobo, CoreCHI, Director Lobo Language Access
• Alan Melby, Chair of FIT North America
• Natalya Mytareva, Executive Director, Certification Commission for Healthcare Interpreters
• Barry Olsen, Principal Consultant, What about language?
• Hélène Pielmeier, Senior Analyst at CSA Research
• Dr. Bill Rivers, Principal, WP Rivers & Associates

About Interpreting SAFE-AI Task Force Workgroup Interpreting SAFE
AI Task Force workgroup is a diverse group of industry stakeholders advocating for fair
and ethical AI in interpreting. The group's mission is to establish, disseminate, and promote guidelines
for responsible AI adoption in the field, ensuring the technology's benefits are maximized while
minimizing potential risks.

[Nicole Montagna]

Thank you so much for posting this! 

The Sign Language Translation and Avatar Technology organization is an international group of scholars has been around for over. a decade. They've been gathering as a sub-conference to various host events, like TISLR and conferences focusing on language and computation, discussing the various developments in the field, from the technical details to the more theoretical, like ethics. 

The technologies and approaches used for machine learning and AI for spoken language are somewhat different that for signed languages, but ethical issues are very similar. 

For anyone interested in this topic I suggest reading "Alone Together" by Sherry Turkle. The book explores how the development of "AI" based interactive technologies, like avatars and robots, impact our expectations and interactions with fellow humans. The book also mentions a lot of interesting precursor technologies like ELIZA that can be great ELK (extra linguistic knowledge) that can come up when  interpreting about this topic as well. 

WASLI is happening next week and I imagine there'll be some buzz about this topic there too. 

All my best from Brooklyn,

Nicole

[Stephanie Jo Kent]

Hi all,

A couple months ago I shared with you about the SAFE AI Task Force.

Here's an update, some resources, and the link to a "perception" survey that is designed for interpreters, language agencies, the hiring/paying entities etc. Note: this is different than the end user survey (also called "Perception Survey") which is in process (with challenges) of being translated into ASL.

Update and Resources

• both the end user survey and the provider survey are out in English and nine other spoken/written languages
• we're negotiating an historic Data Sharing Agreement with the private company conducting the survey so that Deaf researchers can work (later) with this community-sourced data (fingers crossed that the Agreement comes through!)
  
• an article published in Views is publicly available in both English and ASL (thank you RID!)
• a webinar series of three episodes on the question of "Are Deaf Communities Ready for AI Interpreting?" is in process of being published on the Brown University video channel. You can already watch Episode 1: First Thoughts on Automated Interpreting and Episode 2: Machine Learning and Automated Interpreting. Episode 3: Informed Consent and Automated Interpreting will hopefully be published this week.
  
  • There's also a playlist that links all the episodes together
  • The captions have been edited to a higher accuracy than possible with simultaneous interpreting under 'presentation conditions'
    

Link to the PROVIDER SURVEY. Please share widely and be sure to specify that this is for interpreters and those involved with the business and administration of interpreting services.

best regards,

steph

[Stephanie Jo Kent]

Hi folks,

You just got an insider look at a message to members of the the Advisory Group on AI and Interpreting, working with the SAFE AI Task Force https://safeaitf.org/

None of the info is confidential, we've been trying to keep the conversation and developments about this burgeoning alliance with spoken language interpreters transparent and participatory.

Anyway, the reminder applies to all of you too because you are in an official capacity to share the interpreter survey with your network.

Link to the PROVIDER SURVEY in English for ASL/English interpreters . 

This is an opportunity for Deaf Interpreters, Deaf Heritage and h/Hearing sign language interpreters to begin to influence future law concerning the use of artificial intelligence (AI) for automatic interpreting.

Please share widely and be sure to specify that this is for interpreters and those involved with the business and administration of interpreting servicers: including requestors, referral agencies, payors, and so on.

thanks,

steph

ps, if you've been keeping up with the  Advisory Group, you'll know that we decided not to force an ASL Translation of this survey for Deaf end users at this time. Learn about the reasons on the Advisory Group's YouTube Channel:  ASL Survey Translation Update.

pps, at our meeting this Friday afternoon (3-4:30pm Eastern) we will be talking about how to still get some fundamental principles from the Deaf perspective into the first SAFE AI report to be published by CSA Research in early February. This "Perception Report "report will include results from the provider survey (interpreter's perspective) so it's important to get our professional experiences and opinions included!