La langue de la prévoyance
2035 scenario where a new type of polyglotism is enabled by AI
After posting my own instructions on generating and writing foresight scenarios, I came across a Worldbuilding Course by Existential Hope (part of
). The course is hosted on Udemy and guides learners through the steps of building a future world for the year 2035 using the rapid development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for inspiration.A prompt is provided that asks learners to imagine the year 2035 when AI is a powerful tool that remains under human direction. AI is accelerating breakthroughs in healthcare, energy, material sciences, and space exploration. Challenges remain with automation deeply disrupting knowledge work, lagging regulatory systems, and uneven and unjust access to AI. Many people are being left behind.
After completing the first module, I developed a vision for a 2035 where Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) might be used to enable polyglotism in knowledge workers, so that these professionals could work in multiple languages and geographies. The Existential Hope course helped to develop my scenario over three more modules (four separate modules in total) and challenged me to think of a desirable future. Check out the Worldbuilding Toolbox.
AI Change Drivers
I imagined changes that could make use of advancements in social technology that are redefining cooperation and governance, and advancements in neurotechnology that are aiming to make direct-brain communication possible.
Social technologies may serve democratic public interests; expand access to information and knowledge; and decentralize control, power, and privilege. New social technologies could bridge cultural divides between collectivism and individualism using linguistic patterns and polyglotism.
Neurotechnology that attempts to mimic brain-like methods might allow computers to make more human-like decisions and, vice versa. Direct-brain communication between humans and their environments could be possible using Brain Computer Interfaces (BCIs) and AI neural links. Unfortunately these inventions are of great interest to transhumanists and are also difficult and expensive to realize.
Speculative 2035 Scenario
Polyglotism is a highly sought after trait in knowledge workers in the year 2035. A polyglot can work anywhere in the world on cross-disciplinary teams. Reduced language barriers and improved understanding of linguistic patterns become critical democratizing systems for knowledge economy workers and businesses.
Service industries, social services, and civic systems are the first to embrace the use of AI to speed and ease language translation. This undeniably improves global collaboration, cultural sensitivities, and cultural exchanges. Wider and more inclusive governance of environmental issues, resource extraction, and emergency responses are unlocked, as are systemic transparency and accountability.
Tool AI and replacement AI enable the creation of Translation Language Models (TLMs). TLMs are multipurpose AI tools with optimized text recognition and widely sourced, citizen-owned training databases. Rapid translation increases understanding across languages (for example, between English and French speakers) as well as within languages (for example, reducing barriers presented by dialects or technical jargon).
Businesses and corporations within the knowledge economy and service industries drive demand for rapid, AI-assisted language translation. This demand is at a global scale, reflecting increasing globalization and technological interconnectedness. Marginalized communities, due to unequal wealth distribution and access to AI tools, respond with their own creative communities.
Open-source requirements and public documentation of TLM training are essential for democratizing and equitizing access for knowledge workers. Open innovation platforms source community feedback to further transparency and interoperability. Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) ensure open access to documentation and training data so that communities drive decision-making on model adaptations. Community feedback is critical for overcoming growing barriers to access and participation of marginalized groups, as well as to preserving a variety of old and new languages.
Tool AI is most widely available and in-demand for TLMs by 2035. However, interest of techno-billionaires and transhumanists is driving investment in Replacement AGI and realization of BCIs. BCIs, or neural implants, are created by private, for-profit companies for those who can finance their development. While hardware devices, BCIs, or neural implants are created by private, for-profit companies, the DAOs ensure community control over software adaptations.
Through AI-enabled language translation, respect, integration, and interconnectedness can grow. Enablement of neurotechnology and processes to enhance brain function may improve focus, learning speed, and information retention, including of languages. More intuitive cybernetic interactions that are ethical and aligned with a variety of ever-changing human values are needed.
Digital divides remain in this version of 2035 and unequal access to TLM technology excludes marginalized communities from knowledge work. Ableism keeps individuals with speech and hearing impairments, learning disabilities, or auditory processing issues out of product design-research and clinical trials. Those who cannot afford TLM subscriptions or neural implants are limited to their local labour markets, and to communicating in only the languages that they can learn independently.
Those with access to AI-driven translation devices can overcome illiteracy, while those without access experience worsening access to information and social connections. Without multi-linguistic sensibility, some of these individuals become susceptible to manipulation through disinformation and propaganda. Governments and regulation cannot keep up, which creates barriers to transparency, open access technology and interoperability. This means that the benefits of AI development are not in the public interest, and often, not in interest of solving the most wicked problems.
Reflection
This imagined implementation of AI as a multipurpose tool for language learning is important to me as a French-language learner. English is my first language and I live in an anglophone city, however I work in a bilingual organization and city. I have found my use of LLMs to be more than mindlessly translating text. The more translations I complete the more I begin piecing together my own phrases, recalling vocabulary independently, and, ultimately, I attempt to work in two languages.
This practice has raised ethical concerns for me. While it is possible to create documents in multiple languages, am I creating an expectation among readers that I can converse in multiple languages? What does it mean to be able to read and write in a language you cannot speak? What cultural meanings and linguistic characteristics am I co-opting or erasing?
If people could work in multiple languages, they might overcome recessions in local labour markets. However, the purely utilitarian use of language may eliminate some of the subtle cultural meaning beneath the original words.
In my scenario, language adaptation becomes essential to the well-being of knowledge workers, but contributes to worsening accessibility of work and worsening socio-economic circumstance for some. As we seen frequently in the present, transhumanist ideologies co-opt potentially democratic technology for private interests.
Closing
This scenario is the first in a series, across which I intend to demonstrate the breadth of speculative scenario generation and use. In doing so, I hope to begin to suggest and demonstrate the usefulness for critical thinking, problem solving, and strategy development. This 2035 scenario helps uncover (and share) my assumptions about the use of AI in the present: as a multipurpose tool with the potential to democratize access to information for many, co-opted to fulfill the fantasies of a select few.
Stay tuned, there is more to come.