PhD student aims to improve AI for underserved languages and communities

Hellina Hailu Nigatu always loved math and physics – really any field that let her calculate things. Then she found computer science. By the time she'd started her PhD at UC Berkeley, she saw how computing skills could address a range of issues from healthcare to women's rights. She learned in classes about concepts in Natural Language Processing and large language models developed in English. But Nigatu, who is Ethiopian, found that most of the methods she learned wouldn’t work in other languages she knew. The artificial intelligence boom is rapidly transforming modern life. But with a lack of diversity in who informs and develops these technologies and the disparities in the existing data being used, these tools could cement and exacerbate global inequalities. Nigatu is an up-and-coming expert combating that risk through research and mentorship.