Respond’s language rights interventions in Futurism and PRX Radio Station
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: Respond Crisis Translation’s unmasking of the dangers and ills of unsupervised reliance on AI and machine translation tools in the U.S. asylum and immigration context was featured in Futurism’s The Byte and on The World from PRX’s Things That Go Boom podcast.
In “ICE IS USING BUSTED TRANSLATION AI THAT CAN'T UNDERSTAND DETAINEES”, Futurism quotes Respond founder and executive director Ariel Koren and Afghan languages team lead Uma Mirkhail:
"Not only do the asylum applications have to be translated, but the government will frequently weaponize small language technicalities to justify deporting someone. … The application needs to be absolutely perfect." – Ariel Koren
"Afghan languages are not highly resourced in terms of technology, in particular local dialects. … It’s almost impossible for a machine to convey the same message that a professional interpreter with awareness about the country of origin can do, including cultural context." – Uma Mirkhail
With systemic biases against non-English speakers in both government and machine learning abounding, it's heartbreaking but not surprising that the tools meant to help immigration officials and the people under their charge communicate end up causing harm and headaches.
Koren and Mirkhail also spoke to the hosts of Things That Go Boom about how clunky and error-ridden tools are jeopardizing asylum seekers’ claims:
It’s a story we hear a lot these days: AI is having an impact on everything in our lives, and it’s killing creators’ livelihoods.
What we don’t hear, though, is what that story has to do with the people seeking asylum in the United States every day.
In this episode, we’ll show you how their lives can be forever changed by similar large language models …
