Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Google has announced an ambitious new project to develop a single AI language model that supports the world’s “1,000 most spoken languages.” As a first step towards this goal, the company is unveiling an AI model trained on over 400 languages, which it describes as “the largest language coverage seen in a speech model today.”
Language and AI have arguably always been at the heart of Google’s products, but recent advances in machine learning — particularly the development of powerful, multi-functional “large language models” or LLMs — have placed new emphasis on these domains.
Google has already begun integrating these language models into products like Google Search, while fending off criticism about the systems’ functionality. Language…
