Google's AI photo app uses crowdsourcing to preserve endangered languages

Google has a new way to preserve endangered languages: give cultures the AI tools they need to protect the languages themselves. The company has launched Woolaroo, an open source photo translation web app (also available through Google Arts & Culture for Android and iOS) that uses machine learning and image recognition to help preserve languages on the brink. As a user, you just have to point your phone's camera at an object to have the AI recognize and describe it in a given language, complete with pronunciation. Woolaroo's real power comes from its open nature, however. Communities can use the platform to expand vocabularies on their own terms.