Parliament considering AI to assist with interpretation challenges

Parliament is considering the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to augment its strained capacity to provide interpreting services for its sessions.

Secretary for the National Assembly Masibulele Xaso told MPs the institution was exploring possibilities including AI for real time interpreting services.

The institution needs at least 44 interpreters to interpret plenary proceedings of its two houses,  the National Assembly and the National Council of Provinces (NCOP).

It only has 27, meaning there is a shortfall of 17 for house plenaries.

“For committees, we provide interpreting services on request, but if we were to have this as a standing arrangement for committees, we would need to have 396 interpreters,” said Xaso.

“If there was a decision to provide interpreting services to committees on an ongoing basis, that’s the capacity we would require. It’s not in place at the moment, and we are not sure it should be in place in that manner.”

He was addressing the National Assembly programme committee after several MPs, specially from the MK Party, complained last month about the lack of interpreting services from English to indigenous languages.

Xaso said during busy times, including when parliament has mini-plenaries in which three debates are held simultaneously, the institution uses freelance interpreters to augment capacity.

He said parliament interpreted from different languages into English but sometimes it was not able to run simultaneous interpretations such as from English to Xhosa or English to Zulu. When it experienced limitation if an interpreter is booked off, they outsource the service.

“We are constrained because most of the time the National Assembly and the NCOP sit at the same time, but pressure comes mostly when there are mini-plenaries, three at the same time and the NCOP sitting at the same time.”

Xaso said he did not think parliament would ever get to a point where it has capacity to provide interpretation for all committees in the assembly and in the NCOP. At times there are 28 National Assembly committees sitting at the same time.

He said the institution has permanent staff for all languages except isiNdebele, and would request people who are all-rounders in language or who speak isiZulu to assist.

Deputy Speaker Annelie Lotriet offered to collaborate with parliament staff to resolve the issue. One of her duties is ensuring a policy is in place to guide parliament in complying with the Constitution and other national legislation on language matters and ensure implementation of parliament’s language policy.

“Could I request that this exercise is done in collaboration with my office as it is one of my assigned responsibilities. I think it is necessary that we do an in-depth comprehensive study on the latest technology and what we can do in terms of interpreting, what is cost-effective and so forth,” she said.

Some MPs, including National Assembly Speaker Thoko Didiza, expressed concern about the use of AI, wondering if the technology could interpret advanced language, including idioms.

She, however, supported in-depth investigation into how the interpreting issue could be addressed, suggesting parliament should engage universities’ language units to manage costs and to use students’ capacity and the Pan South African Language Board.

The EFF’s Hlengiwe Mkhaliphi motivated for recruitment of young interpreters as part of job creation instead of outsourcing the service.

The UDM’s Nqabayomzi Kwankwa was concerned about quality assurance and whether the youth and AI could preserve and show respect to indigenous languages.

He cited the SABC’s Xhosa language radio station Umhlobo Wenene as an institution that employed young people from universities, but he argued they can’t speak the language properly and said the same could happen in parliament.

“If we use this AI thing, it must not be to the detriment of African languages in particular. I believe other languages such as English and Afrikaans aren’t affected by that and I don’t think AI can interpret my (deep) Xhosa or other languages.”

Kwankwa said AI could also be a challenge for a country that wants to create jobs but relies on technology to get things done.

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