What is LITHME?

LITHME is a COST Action network with members from every EU member state, plus a number of other countries outside the EU. Action chair: Dave Sayers (University of Jyväskylä).

Our aims

1. To prepare language researchers for what is coming;
2. To facilitate longer term dialogue between linguists and technology developers.

How will pervasive augmentation technology affect language in areas such as international law, translation, and other forms of language work? What will this mean for how people identify with specific languages? Could increasing reliance on real-time language technologies actually change the structure of language? Longer term, could developments in brain-machine interfaces serve to complement or even supersede language altogether? Linguistics will be far stronger for robust technological foresight, while developers will benefit from better understanding potential linguistic and societal consequences of their creations.

Meanwhile LITHME will shine a light on the ethical implications of emerging language technologies. Inequality of access to technologies, questions of privacy and security, new vectors for deception and crime; these and other critical issues would be kept to the fore. LITHME will equip linguists and stakeholders for the human-machine era.