Machine Translation Errors Create 'Linguistic Doom Loop' Threatening Endangered Languages on Wikipedia
Summary
Machine translation errors plague up to 60% of Wikipedia articles in vulnerable African languages, creating a devastating 'linguistic doom loop' where AI systems train on flawed content and amplify mistakes, forcing Greenlandic Wikipedia toward closure and threatening the digital preservation of endangered languages worldwide.
Key Points
- Machine translators create error-filled Wikipedia articles in vulnerable languages, with volunteers estimating 40-60% of articles in some African language editions are uncorrected machine translations
- AI systems training on these poorly translated Wikipedia pages create a linguistic doom loop, as the errors get amplified when people use the same flawed AI tools to create more content
- The Greenlandic Wikipedia edition faces closure after administrators deleted most content due to machine translation errors, highlighting how AI threatens the preservation of endangered languages