AI, Bible translation and the Global Gathering

Technology that is impacting Bible translation is also proving to be a useful (and fun) tool for delegates in Johannesburg.

Screenshot

Johannesburg, 4 November 2024 - Artificial Intelligence (AI) has emerged as a significant tool in Bible translation. At the Global Gathering, some delegates have been experimenting.

Martjin Haaijer, the Global Gathering’s sound engineer, gave this prompt to an app called Suna: “Make an African worship song about all the nations and languages gathering together praising God at the Wycliffe Global Gathering. Make three verses, one chorus and one bridge.”

In about one minute, Suna created this song. It’s not perfect, but it’s surprisingly good.

Verse 1:

We gather here from far and wide

With hearts uplifted by the tide

From every tongue we sing as one

In praise of God's eternal Son

Verse 2:

The nations join in holy choir

Our voices blend with heavenly fire

Each language spoken here today

In unity we stand and pray

Chorus:

Hallelujah we rejoice

Every tribe in every voice

Hallelujah sing His name

All creation joins the same

Bridge:

In every dialect His grace

Shines on each and every face

No longer strangers we proclaim

One family in His name

Verse 3:

From mountains high to oceans deep

His love it spreads and makes us weep

The Wycliffe family hand in hand

Together now we take a stand

‘And those guys behind the desk were loving the song,’ Martjin says. He was convinced that if he played it, no one would know it’s an AI song. 

‘If you hear the lyrics, you will be like, “Hey, this is about us!” You can make all kinds of songs, like with elevated pitch songs or whatever’.

There are some limitations. Martijn noticed that Suna pronounced Wycliffe as ‘Y-cliffe’. So he went back to see if the app could correct it. When he plugged in the same prompt and the correct pronunciation, Suna created a completely different song.

From a Global Gathering session about AI and Bible translation.

More uses

Another delegate fed ChatGPT his audio recordings from a day’s sessions and asked it to produce a summary. Again, the result was not perfect, but it was surprisingly useful.

And then Etienne Ondoa, an IT specialist and language technology consultant-in-training at the Cameroon Association for Bible Translation and Literacy (CABTAL), tried another experiment.

‘During the presentation on AI and Bible Translation, we were offered several resources and I tested Claude AI,’ he said. ‘I asked Claude AI to create a camera application that I could install on my phone and he created it. 

‘When I wanted to use it, the phone, however, refused to give it permission to take a photo of me.’ 

Etienne has been exploring how AI can help advance the mission of CABTAL.    

‘This is the future - we won't be able to be efficient if we put AI aside’, he says. ‘It is capable of generating a whole Old Testament.’ He adds that humans need to furnish it with a database like the New Testament and other written material. AI will thus learn to write a draft translation, based on that data. 

‘It will generate draft zero and humans will work on it to produce the first draft,’ he said. 

He cautions that there could be some threats to watch out against as translators need to be IT literate to make the most of this tool. 

 ‘AI will only do what you teach it to do.’ 

Story: Isaac Forchie, Jim Killam. Photo: Daisy Kilel.