Scripture Forge Announces AI Assist for Bible Translation
The Scripture Forge innovation group has announced the launch of AI Assist for Bible Translation (AI Assist), a valuable tool that uses artificial intelligence technologies to assist in or automate the process of translating the Bible from one language to another. AI Assist seeks to enhance the efficiency and accuracy of the translation process, helping to make the Bible accessible to diverse linguistic communities around the world.
“Driven by our passion for bridging language barriers, we’ve developed this technology to strengthen the hands of translators who are already serving their communities, by fortifying their process of learning, understanding and refining the Bible text,” said Scripture
Forge Product Manager Tom Albers. “With each completed book in a translation, wisdom and grace can reach new hearers in all corners of the globe, all as a result of faithful translators and their teams choosing and using the best available methods.”
Here are key features of AI Assist for Bible Translation:
Language Processing Analytics. AI Assist leverages natural language processing (NLP) algorithms to unravel the nuances of both the source and target languages. These algorithms analyze grammatical structures, idiomatic expressions, and contextual meanings to support accurate and contextually relevant translations. While AI-generated drafts are not perfect, we’ve found that they provide natural-sounding language, allowing their use as a good starting point for many teams.
Parallel Texts and Corpus Analysis. AI systems can be trained on parallel texts and linguistic corpora, comparing vast amounts of multilingual data to identify patterns and linguistic equivalences. This helps in creating more coherent and linguistically faithful translations by drawing on the wealth of linguistic knowledge contained in existing texts.
Naturalness and Readability. AI-assisted drafting has shown a strong ability to produce readable, natural-sounding text in low-resource languages. These drafts will require correction and adjustments, but the types of errors included in the drafts have been
found to be of the sort that are easily identified and easily corrected by trained teams. This is particularly important for delivering a translation that can be understood and internalized by the majority of the community.
Translators Control the Result. AI Assist supports the essential role of Bible translators, serving as a valuable tool to speed up the translation process and increase accuracy in repetitive tasks. Translators maintain the final decision-making and content authority,
ensuring that both theological truth and cultural nuances are accurately conveyed.
Quality Assurance. Scripture Forge tooling can be used for quality assurance by involving the community to identify potential errors, inconsistencies, or deviations from established translation standards. This helps translators revise the text with community input,
ensuring quality in the final translated text and increasing the preparedness of the community to accept the completed work.
“While AI can be a powerful tool in the translation process, human expertise and cultural understanding remain essential,” Albers said.
“Translating these texts requires a deep understanding of theological concepts, cultural nuances, and the broader context of the hearers within the faith community. AI Assist is designed to be used under the direction of translators and their supporting teams who
bring their linguistic, cultural, and theological insights to the process.”
Scripture Forge is prepared to help you on your journey to bring the Word of God to life in new languages. Click here to access the Scripture Forge site: Scripture Forge
