Keynote speakers

Muhammad ABDUL-MAGEED, PhD

Associate Professor

Canada Research Chair in Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning

The University of British Columbia

Keynote Title

The Future of Language AI: Inclusion, Multilingualism, and Human Flourishing

Bio

Muhammad Abdul-Mageed is a scholar of language, intelligence, and society whose work explores how AI can better understand, represent, and serve the world’s linguistic and cultural diversity. He holds the Canada Research Chair in Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning at the University of British Columbia, where he leads research on large language models, multilingual and multimodal AI, speech technologies, machine translation, and responsible evaluation. His work has advanced culturally grounded AI, multilingual benchmarks, and efficient speech systems, as well as AI applications in public-interest domains including health, education, and cultural heritage. Across these efforts, his research is guided by a central question: How can we build AI systems that empower people, sustain linguistic diversity, and advance human flourishing?

Abstract

Artificial intelligence is transforming how we communicate, learn, work, and participate in society. Recent advances in large language models have accelerated progress in language technologies at an unprecedented pace, yet they have also exposed a defining question for our time: What purpose should language AI ultimately serve? As language AI becomes increasingly embedded in how people communicate, learn, and participate in society, its success cannot be measured solely by model performance. It must also be judged by its capacity to broaden opportunities, embrace linguistic diversity, and enrich human lives.

In this keynote, I argue that the next generation of language AI should be defined not by the scale of our models, but by the breadth of the people, languages, and communities they empower. Achieving this vision requires rethinking not only how we build language technologies, but also how we evaluate, deploy, and ultimately define their success. Drawing on examples from multilingual AI, speech and language technologies, equitable evaluation, and AI-enabled education, I will illustrate how advances in computational linguistics can simultaneously deepen scientific understanding and address pressing societal challenges. These advances also compel us to rethink what it means to be fully literate in an AI-mediated world.

Looking ahead, I propose a human-centered paradigm for language AI that places people, not models, at its center. This vision calls for a new conception of full literacy in the age of AI, in which individuals and communities are empowered not only to use AI technologies, but also to understand, shape, and benefit from them in ways that strengthen linguistic diversity, expand educational opportunity, preserve cultural identity, and promote meaningful participation in society. Achieving this vision will require deep collaboration among linguists, educators, psychologists, computer scientists, policymakers, and language communities. The future of language AI will ultimately be measured not by the scale of our models, but by the extent to which they empower people, sustain linguistic diversity, and advance human flourishing.

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