Liam O’Dell

January 22, 2025

SignGPT – a five-year project with the aim of building ChatGPT-like technology to translate British Sign Language (BSL) into English and vice versa – has received more than £8.4 million of funding from the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, it has been announced.

The team behind the initiative will also look to produce “the largest sign language dataset in the world”, using it to build a language processing programme or ‘large language model’ (LLM) to provide tools for the Deaf community akin to what is currently available for written and spoken languages.

SignGPT involves academics from Oxford and Surrey, as well as researchers from the Deafness Cognition and Language Research Centre (DCAL) and Deaf stakeholders.

Professor Richard Bowden, of the University of Surrey, stressed the artificial intelligence (AI) project is “not about replacing humans”, but is instead “about ensuring the Deaf community is not left behind” in the LLM “revolution”.

“By centring technology that serves the community, we’re enabling equal access to information, working towards seamless communication between the Deaf and hearing worlds, and demonstrating that AI can be a tool for inclusivity and empowerment.”

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Source: https://liamodell.com/