Photo: Getty Images North America
Howard University has teamed up with Google Research to help artificial intelligence (AI) systems better understand and respond to African American English (AAE), per the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
Through an initiative titled "Project Elevate Black Voices," Howard and Google researchers are collaborating to improve how Black users interact with voice-enabled technology. A groundbreaking dataset of over 600 hours of recorded speech has been gathered from speakers across 32 states to capture the range of African American English dialects, which are often underrepresented or misunderstood by current AI systems.
The goal of Project Elevate Black Voices is to create equitable systems for automatic speech recognition (ASR), a tool used to power many devices, including smartphones, smart speakers, and in-car systems.
"African American English has been at the forefront of United States culture since almost the beginning of the country," Dr. Gloria Washington, co-principal investigator and Howard computer science professor, said in a statement. "Voice assistant technology should understand different dialects of all African American English to truly serve not just African Americans, but others who speak these unique dialects."
According to researchers, many Black users have conditioned themselves to adjust their natural voices or code-switch as speech technologies often fail to recognize AAE.
"There's a noticeable absence of natural AAE in existing speech datasets," Washington said. "Even when it exists, it's hard to leverage due to code-switching and social pressures."
Google's Role and Commitment Dr. Courtney Heldreth, co-principal investigator at Google Research, called the HBCU collaboration important for the future of technology.
"It's our mission at Google to make technology that's useful and accessible," Heldreth said. "I truly believe that our work here will allow more users to express themselves authentically when using smart devices."
The Black Information Network is your source for Black News! Get the latest news 24/7 on The Black Information Network. Listen now on the iHeartRadio app or click HERE to tune in live.