Iceland\u2019s former prime minister, Katr\u00edn Jakobsd\u00f3ttir, has said that the Icelandic language could be wiped out in as little as a generation due to the sweeping rise of AI and encroaching English language dominance.<\/p>\n
Katr\u00edn, who stood down as prime minister last year to run for president after seven years in office, said Iceland was undergoing \u201cradical\u201d change when it came to language use. More people are reading and speaking English, and fewer are reading in Icelandic, a trend she says is being exacerbated by the way language models are trained.<\/p>\n
She made the comments before her appearance at the Iceland Noir crime fiction festival in Reykjav\u00edk after the surprise release of her second novel of the genre, which she co-wrote with Ragnar J\u00f3nasson.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of languages disappear, and with them dies a lot of value[and] a lot of human thought,\u201d she said. Icelandic has only about 350,000 speakers and is among the world\u2019s least-altered languages.<\/p>\n
\u201cHaving this language that is spoken by so very few, I feel that we carry a huge responsibility to actually preserve that. I do not personally think we are doing enough to do that,\u201d she said, not least because young people in Iceland \u201care absolutely surrounded by material in English, on social media and other media\u201d.<\/p>\n
Katr\u00edn has said that Iceland has been \u201cquite proactive\u201d in pushing for AI to be usable in Icelandic. Earlier this month, Anthropic announced a partnership with Iceland\u2019s ministry of education, one of the world\u2019s first national AI education pilots. The partnership is a nationwide pilot across Iceland \u2013 giving hundreds of teachers across Iceland access to AI tools.<\/p>\n
During her time in government, Katr\u00edn said they could see the \u201cthreats and dangers of AI\u201d and the importance of ensuring that Icelandic texts and books were used to train it.<\/p>\n
Katr\u00edn and Ragnar\u2019s second book is set in the small village of F\u00e1skr\u00fa\u00f0sfj\u00f6r\u00f0ur, in eastern Iceland, in 1989. Photograph: Arctic Images\/Alamy<\/p>\n
Ragnar J\u00f3nasson, her co-author, agreed that the language was in grave danger. \u201cWe are just a generation away from losing this language because all of these huge changes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are reading more in English, they are getting their information from the internet, from their phones, and kids in Iceland are even conversing in English sometimes between themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
Citing what happened when Iceland was under Danish rule until 1918, when the Icelandic language was subjected to Danish influence, Katr\u00edn said changes could happen \u201cvery quickly\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have seen that before here in Iceland because we of course were under the Danes for quite a long time and the Danish language had a lot of influence on the Icelandic language.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thatchange, however, was turned around rapidly by a strong movement by Icelanders, she added.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe we need a stronger movement right now to talk about why do we want to preserve the language? That is really the big thing that we should be talking about here in Iceland,\u201d she said, adding that the \u201cfate of a nation\u201d could be decided on how it treated its language, as language shaped the way people thought.<\/p>\n
skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to This is Europe<\/p>\n The most pressing stories and debates for Europeans \u2013 from identity to economics to the environment<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n While there are \u201camazing opportunities\u201d that AI could present, she said it posed enormous challenges to authors and the creative industry as a whole.<\/p>\n