Project description
Natural Language Understanding for non-standard languages and dialects
When artificially intelligent language models and algorithms crunch the numbers of huge data sets, they are prone to bias simply because linguistic diversity is inadequately represented. This exclusion involves millions who converse in dialects or unusual languages. It also precludes them from emergent future technologies. The EU-funded DIALECT project will create algorithms which facilitate high levels of input variation to allow diverse dialects to be incorporated into language technology. It will also broaden ground truth labels (i.e. computer instructions used to check accuracy in the real world) in interactive learning by including elements of human uncertainty. The result will be less data-intensive, and it will make for more equitable and accurate language processing.
Objective
Dialects are ubiquitous and for many speakers are part of everyday life. They carry important social and communicative functions. Yet, dialects and non-standard languages in general are a blind spot in research on Natural Language Understanding (NLU). Despite recent breakthroughs, NLU still fails to take linguistic diversity into account. This lack of modeling language variation results in biased language models with high error rates on dialect data. This failure excludes millions of speakers today and prevents the development of future technology that can adapt to such users.
To account for linguistic diversity, a paradigm shift is needed: Away from data-hungry algorithms with passive learning from large data and single ground truth labels, which are known to be biased. To go past current learning practices, the key is to tackle variation at both ends: in input data and label bias. With DIALECT, I propose such an integrated approach, to devise algorithms which aid transfer from rich variability in inputs, and interactive learning which integrates human uncertainty in labels. This will reduce the need for data and enable better adaptation and generalization.
Advances in salient areas of deep learning research now make it possible to tackle this challenge. DIALECT’s objectives are to devise a) new algorithms and insights to address extremely scarce data setups and biased labels; b) novel representations which integrate auxiliary sources of information such as complement text data with speech; and c) new datasets with conversational data in its most natural form.
By integrating dialectal variation into models able to learn from scarce data and biased labels, the foundations will be established for fairer and more accurate NLU to break down language and literary barriers. I am privileged to carry out this integration as I have contributed to research in top venues on both cross-lingual learning and learning from biased labels.
Fields of science
Keywords
Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC GrantsHost institution
80539 MUNCHEN
Germany