AI-powered Inuktitut program is ‘within reach’

To follow proper “net-iquette,” check your fishing nets regularly to make sure the fish are safe from birds and the net doesn’t rot in the water.

“It protects your livelihood, maintains fish quality and shows courtesy to fellow fishers and environment,” says Ataatatsiaq — an AI-generated, grey-haired grandpa who speaks in Inuktitut.

The video, titled Net-iquette: Pro Tips from Ataatatsiaq, was posted online a week ago by Kirt Ejesiak, founder of AingAI Indigenous Language Labs. The video is also available in English.

For now, the grandpa’s voice is provided by a human interpreter — but that could soon be done solely using artificial intelligence, Ejesiak said in an interview.

“We’re not there yet, but we really believe it’s within reach now,” he said.

AingAI Indigenous Language Labs, based in Apex, was created in 2022 to help incorporate Inuktitut into artificial intelligence.

For the past three years, Ejesiak and another employee have been collecting Inuktitut texts and thousands of hours of Inuktitut audio. All that information will be inputted and used to “train” the AI program to learn and use Inuktitut.

The program, which doesn’t yet have a name, could be ready for rollout as soon as six months from now, Ejesiak said.

In addition to generating natural Inuktitut voices for characters like grandpa Ataatatsiaq, AingAI’s program will eventually be able to provide Inuktitut-English translation and transcriptions of Inuktitut speech.

The program could become a real-time interpreter that could be used in public meetings or at the doctor’s office to overcome language barriers.

“We’re an Inuit company developing an app that will benefit us as Inuit,” Ejesiak said.

It won’t replace human interpreters, but it will provide Inuit an option at times when there are no interpreters around.

Eventually, the program could be plugged into websites like YouTube to instantly create a translated Inuktitut voiceover for videos, similar to automatic translation that exists for other languages.

However, AingAI is not the only company trying to teach artificial intelligence Inuktitut.

Microsoft Canada partnered with the Government of Nunavut and in December announced the addition of an Inuktitut text-to-speech feature on its translator app.

Ejesiak says governments should partner with small Indigenous companies rather than “blindly writing cheques” to Silicon Valley behemoths like Microsoft who are in it to profit off Inuit language.

Nevertheless, without support from the government, the fully self-funded project costing tens of thousands of dollars is still heading toward completion.

The hope is that AingAI’s success will inspire other Indigenous companies across Canada to spearhead their own AI language programs, Ejesiak said.

“We’re just a company in Apex and if we can do it, you guys in the South Pacific or the Prairies or any other part of the world can do it as well.”