The Languages of Artificial Intelligence in Africa: Promoting Linguistic Diversity in Representations, Histories and Systems of Artificial Intelligence
Abstract
This project seeks to explore the creative potentialities of AI within and for the African context, by promoting existing work and generating new thinking and scholarship on the configuration of AI and local African languages and multilingual dialects. The project, centred on hosting an interdisciplinary workshop in South Africa and the production of a short film, will bring together scholars, artists, practitioners and computer scientists to explore both the representation of AI and digital technologies in African literature written in local languages and the representation of writing and language-making in AI programmes and applications themselves. Through this analysis and approach, we seek to open up new histories, meanings and potentialities of AI in and for the African region, and ultimately contribute to the advancement of locally designed and developed AI technologies that not only respond to local needs but are embedded within local languages and their corresponding value systems.
