Home sign language

AI opens a new world for sign language translation

Caio Cascaes of DOOR International

During his sign-language presentation at the 2025 Missional AI Summit, Caio Cascaes of DOOR International showed three examples of how AI is expected to accelerate Bible translation for hundreds of sign languages.

Chameleon

Chameleon is already available and being deployed. Previous sign-language videos required the human signer to wear marking sensors for the camera to track motion. Chameleon can capture human signing with multiple cameras and without the need for those markers. Then, it can create avatars – AI-generated figures that can vary by physical appearance, age, gender, background and even signing styles. Along with producing avatars that match the audience, this also protects the human signer’s identity if security is an issue.

The initiative represents a balance, Cascaes signed, ‘still keeping to the truth and integrity of God’s Word but doing it in a way that’s most relevant for the current demographics and the people we’re serving.’

A sign language translator works on the Old Testament book of Ruth for Chameleon.

Lava

Lava is under development by SIL. It’s a video and optimisation tool that is language agnostic – meaning its underlying code can be used to translate any sign language.

In the example video Cascaes showed, a .png photo of an East Asian man was uploaded to Lava, which animated the man’s likeness into a sign-language video. Then, for another community, a different .png photo could be used to animate another video using the same sign motions.

‘It has been such an incredible benefit’, Cascaes signed. ‘This technology can be leveraged in countries that are incredibly sensitive where the signing talent, if their identities were known, would be a life-threatening situation.

‘And so in an effort to preserve them, of course, and to preserve the integrity of God’s Word, we now have the ability, leveraging this technology, to make it so that their identities can be totally obfuscated and they and their families can be kept safe.’

Avodah Connect

Finally, Avodah Connect is developing technology that can search and replace specific signs used by an avatar in a video. A translation team may want to use, or not use, a specific sign not present in the original video. This technology will keep them from having to re-record entire videos.

‘This sign language searchability is going to be able to save so much time, so much energy, and accelerate the process of being able to swap out certain signs and make it more applicable and match the type of work you’re trying to do for the audience you’re trying to serve’, Cascaes signed.

•••

Watch the entire presentation here.

Separate session video: Avodah Connect

Story: Jim Killam, Wycliffe Global Alliance

Story translated with ChatGPT. How was the translation accuracy? Let us know at info@wycliffe.net

Alliance organisations are welcome to download and use images from this series.

News

View all articles

Special Report - May 2025

‘We’ve come very far, very fast’

A tech observer outlines what AI will mean soon for workplaces and ministry

Tech pioneer: Christians ‘have to show up’ for AI

Silicon Valley pioneer Pat Gelsinger was CEO of Intel Corporation until December 2024. Quickly realising his career in technology was not finished, he joined the faith/tech platform Gloo in early 2025 as the executive chair and head of technology. He is also a general partner at the venture capital firm Playground Global. Gelsinger was instrumental in the development of cloud computing, Wi-Fi, USB and many other everyday technologies. He estimates his work has touched 60 to 70 percent of humanity. Here are highlights of his keynote talk at the 2025 Missional AI Summit. You can watch his entire talk here. Pat Gelsinger (left) is interviewed onstage by Steele Billings. Both are with Gloo. Watch the full interview here. Is technology good or bad? Technology is neither good nor bad. It’s neutral. It can be used for good. It can be used for bad. … If you think back to the Roman roads, why did Christ come when he came? I’ll argue the Pax Romana and the Roman roads. … The greatest technology of the day was the Roman road system. It was used so the Word could go out. Historical example I will argue Martin Luther was the most significant figure of the last thousand years. And what did he do? He used the greatest piece of technology available at the day, the Gutenberg printing press. He created Bibles. … He broke, essentially, the monopoly on the Bible translations …. He ushered in education. He created the systems that led to the Renaissance. That’s a little punk monk who only wanted to get an audience with the pope because he thought he had a few theological errors. I’ll argue (Luther was) the most significant figure of the last thousand years, using technology to improve the lives of every human that he touched at the time. How today compares to the dawn of the internet AI is more important. AI will be more significant. AI will be more dramatic. … This is now incredibly useful, and we’re going to see AI become just like the internet, where every single interaction will be infused with AI capabilities. In the 75-year-or-so history of computing, we humans have been adapting to the computer. … With AI, computers adapt to us. We talk to them. They hear us. They see us for the first time. And now they are becoming a user interface that fits with humanity. And for this and so many other reasons that every technology has been building on the prior technology, AI will unquestionably be the biggest of these waves, more impactful even than the internet was. On the need for AI development to be open-source It is so critical because we’re embedding knowledge, embedding values, embedding understanding into those underlying models, large language models and every aspect that happens. It must be open, and this is part of what I think is critical about us being together here today. We need to be creating trusted, open, useful AI that we can build humanity on. On the need for Christians to help build AI systems We have to show up as the faith community to be influencing those outcomes, because remember what happened in the social media. We didn’t show up, and look at what we got. So are we going to miss this opportunity for something that’s far more important than social networking with AI? Where it truly in the models embeds every aspect of human history and values into it? We have to show up, team. What we do with large language models is far more important because truly we are choosing how we embody knowledge of all time into those underlying models. They need to be open. They need to be trusted. What Christians must bring to the process If we’re going to show up to influence AI broadly, we have to show up with good engineering, good data, good understanding, good frameworks. How do you measure things like ‘Is that leading to better character? Is that leading to better relationships? Is that creating better vocational outcomes? Is that a valid view of a spiritual perspective?’ We need good underlying data associated with each one of these. And for that we’re actively involved. We’re driving to create that underlying data set. Because we need to show up with good data if we’re going to influence how AI is created. How should this work? For the AI systems we need to create good benchmarks. If I ask about God, does it give me a good answer or not? If I ask about relationships with my children, does it give me good answers? We need to create the corpus of data to give good answers to those questions. And, armed with that good data, we need to show up to influence the total landscape of AI. We want to benchmark OpenAI. We’re going to benchmark Gemini. We’re going to benchmark Claude. We’re going to benchmark Copilot. This is what we’re going to do at Gloo, but we want to be part of a broader community in that discussion so that we’re influential in creating flourishing AI. Technology is a force for good. AI that truly embeds the values that we care about, that we want to honour, that we want to be representing into the future and benchmarking across all of them. Oh his role with Gloo We are going to change the landscape of the faith community and its role in shaping this most critical technology, AI, for faith and flourishing. That’s what we’re going to do at Gloo and we need all of your help and partnership to do so because if we don’t hang together, we’re not going to influence the outcome, right? ‘Here am I, Lord’ I don’t think I’m done. … You and I both need to come to the same position like Isaiah did. Here am I, Lord. Send me. Send me. Send us. That we can be shaping technology as a force for good. That we could grab this moment in time. This is the greatest time to live in human history. We’re going to solve diseases. We’re going to improve lives. We’re going to educate every person in poverty. We are going to solve climate issues. We are going to be using these technologies to improve the lives of every human on the planet. We are going to shape technology as a force for good. Here am I, Lord. Send me. ••• Story: Jim Killam, Wycliffe Global Alliance Translated with ChatGPT. How was the translation accuracy? Let us know at info@wycliffe.net. Alliance organisations are welcome to download and use images from this series.