AI and Translation
AI is transforming translation by making it faster, more accessible, and capable of handling dozens of languages that previously lacked digital tools. These systems can bridge cultural and linguistic gaps, helping people learn, collaborate, and share ideas across borders. At the same time, AI translation still struggles with nuance, tone, and culturally embedded meaning, reminding us that human judgment remains essential. When used thoughtfully, AI becomes a powerful partner in expanding understanding while preserving the richness of human language. Professor Stephen D. Richardson is working on low-resource languages in Africa to encourage the communication and preservation of tribal languages.
Steve Richardson
Steve Richardson is an associate professor of Computer Science at Brigham Young University. His research focus is on machine translation (now referred to as AI translation) of both speech and text for thousands of the world’s low-resource languages. He has recently served as president and councilor of the Association for Machine Translation in the Americas. Steve has been involved in machine translation R&D for over five decades. His prior experiences include: manager of Machine Translation and Translation Systems at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, partner researcher and manager of the Machine Translation Group at Microsoft Research, senior programmer at the IBM Watson Research Center and ASD Bethesda lab, and researcher at BYU’s Translation Sciences Institute. He has BS and MA degrees in Computer Science and Linguistics from BYU and a PhD in Computer Science from the City University of New York. He has served on numerous advisory boards and conference program committees and is the author and/or editor of various books, conference proceedings, and research papers, as well as numerous patents.
