Concern 392 · Working draft · editorial review in progress
Endangered-language exclusion
Endangered-language exclusion is the risk that digital services leave little room for languages whose continued use is already under pressure.
Understanding the concern
If tools work only in dominant languages, speakers may have fewer ways to learn, create or access services in their own language. AI can reinforce that pressure when it produces poor or absent support. But technology can also help communities document and use their languages when they direct the work.
Language survival depends on people, institutions and opportunities, not a chatbot alone. It would be too strong to say AI inevitably causes a language to disappear. The important question is who controls the project and whose needs it serves. Some knowledge may be private or culturally restricted, so gathering every available text is not automatically helpful.
An example
A community wants a language-learning tool but wants control over which recordings and stories may be used.
Illustrative unless identified as a documented case.
Words in plain English
- AI
- Software that learns patterns from examples or uses rules to perform tasks such as recognizing images or generating text. It can make mistakes and does not understand every situation as a person would.
Evidence and its limits
UNESCO and CARE principles support inclusion and community authority. They do not establish a causal forecast of language extinction from AI.
UNESCO · International framework
Global Roadmap for Multilingualism in the Digital Era ↗ (opens in a new tab)Community-led language technology and digital inclusion, including low-resource and endangered languages.
Global Indigenous Data Alliance · Community-led governance principles
CARE Principles for Indigenous Data Governance ↗ (opens in a new tab)Collective benefit, authority to control, responsibility, and ethics; these are governance principles, not a universal legal license.
Broader frameworks and background
These resources provide context. They do not establish every claim in this concern.
A question to discuss
Does the project strengthen community-led language use while respecting control over cultural knowledge?
Keep track of different views, what needs checking, and any next step in your own discussion notes.
Open discussion notes →Principles for the conversation
Before you finish · reflect together
Virtues and principles to consider
Virtues are qualities we practice in how we treat people and make choices. They are not scores for judging someone. Use these ideas to explore what a thoughtful response could look like.
Justice
Justice means fair treatment, fair procedures, and attention to who receives benefits and burdens. It asks whether people with less power can be heard and seek repair.
Look at outcomes across different groups and individual cases. Provide a usable way to challenge decisions and correct harm. Equal wording in a policy does not guarantee equal treatment in practice.
Ask together: Who benefits, who bears the cost, and who can challenge the decision?
Dignity
Dignity means recognizing each person's worth regardless of usefulness, status, or a system's score. People deserve respect and a voice in matters that affect them.
Explain important decisions, avoid humiliating treatment, and keep room for a person's story. Do not treat a prediction as a complete account of who someone is.
Ask together: Does this use treat each person as someone whose experience matters?
Listening
Listening means trying to understand someone's experience before preparing an answer. People who use a service, work with it, or are judged by it may notice problems its designers miss.
Invite people to describe what happened in their own words. Repeat back what you understood and let them correct it. A quiet person or a complaint that is hard to measure may still reveal something important.
Ask together: Whose experience have we not heard yet?
Editorial ratings
These are editorial judgments from the register, not measured probabilities or predictions about your situation.
About the register and scoring →More ways to explore
Search for more writing
For more specific or recent material, open a search below or ask for a web summary. AI-generated summaries can contain mistakes; open the original articles to check them.