Last week, the NAIN consortium (Nederlandse AI voor het Nederlands / Dutch AI for Dutch Language) presented a landscape on the current state of language and speech technology in the Netherlands and Flanders. This publication was initiated by Security Delta (HSD) and TNO, and made possible in part by Zuid-Holland AI.
“A major obstacle to the use of AI in the Netherlands is that existing algorithms are not well trained for the Dutch language. Especially dialects, slang, accents, children’s language and speech abnormalities are problematic. This problem applies to the entire public sector and to all Dutch-language interactions in the market. Individual organizations sometimes develop partial solutions for specific domains, but without an overarching idea because there is not enough money for this.
In this landscape map, the NAIN consortium (Dutch AI for Dutch Language) presents the current state of language and speech technology in the Netherlands and Flanders. From this landscape map, further work can be done in the coming 5 years on the development of state-of-the-art sovereign Dutch language and speech technology, which is inclusive, diverse, transparent and explainable, and to which domain-specific extensions can be linked. The final results of this project can be used everywhere in Dutch society, and enable an enormous diversity of applications, with great public and economic value. Think, for example, of registering care activities without a care provider having to take her hands off the bed, when calling 112 to report an accident, on KLM’s Twitter feed to speak to customers quickly and adequately, etc.”
You can download the report on SecurityInsight.nl