The Welsh Government have announced that they have established a partnership with the artificial intelligence company OpenAI, the developers of the ChatGPT program. According to the Welsh Government the aim of the partnership is to increase the everyday use of Welsh. As part of the agreement the government will provide training data to Open AI in order to improve the way ChatGPT operates through the medium of Welsh. The partnership will result in the establishing of open data archives for Welsh in order to aid developers in their work.
The announcement comes as part of a wider statement in the Senedd on the priorities of the government in regards to the language by the Cabinet Secretary for the Economy, Energy and the Welsh Language, Jermey Miles. Miles sees new language technologies as a ‘golden thread’ that runs throughout the work of the Welsh Government in this field.
In a statement, Jeremy Miles said:
‘Cymraeg belongs to us all, and we all have a duty to protect it and to make sure it grows in all aspects of society. I want to see more Welsh for more people, and the priorities I’m setting out today will ensure we’re on the right path to meet our target of a million Welsh speakers and increasing the daily use of the language by 2050.
All of us use technology one way or another, and increasingly, we’re seeing AI being used in more situations. I’m excited to see how the new data partnership with OpenAI will lead to improving how AI-technologies work in Welsh. Working with OpenAI in the past, we’ve been able to share Welsh language resources and Welsh Government funded components.’
The partnership will build open data archives to contribute data to the research community, to improve linguistic performance of AI models and applications.’
In the same statement, Anna Makanju, VP of Global Affairs at OpenAI, said:
‘The Welsh Government has been a great partner in creating an open-source dataset for training language models. At OpenAI, we want our models to understand as many languages and cultures as possible, so they can benefit as many people as possible.
Since the Welsh Government published its Welsh language technology action plan in 2018, it has funded, created, and worked on many of the digital components that the language needs.’
Jeremy Miles added:
‘I’m very proud of what we’ve achieved under the Welsh language technology action Plan, but this work is never done and dusted. So today, I’m inviting people to submit information or ideas about what technological developments would help them use more Welsh, and what needs to happen to make it easier for them to use technology in Welsh.’
The public can submit their ideas and information, as well as find more information regarding the aims of the project, on the Welsh Government’s website.
