Machine learning is one of the fastest growing and most transformative technologies in the world. Yet as it increasingly caters to English and Chinese speakers - it leaves people and economies to play catch up at a critical time in its development.
"Arabic is falling behind," Professor Ashraf Elnagar, the coordinator of the machine learning and Arabic language processing research group at the University of Sharjah, told The National.
The global machine learning market is projected to grow from $7.3 billion (Dh26.7bn) in 2020 to $30.6bn in 2024, according to a 2019 report by Market Research Future. The pandemic has dented these outlays, but data scientists are still in demand.
There are currently about 75,000 active job listings worldwide for those with machine learning skills on LinkedIn, the majority listed in the US, Asia and Western Europe.
There are numerous examples of machine learning popping up in everyday life: Netflix's recommendations or the playlists generated by Spotify; Siri or Alexa responding to a spoken request for the local headlines; or a credit card company sending a text alert about potentially fraudulent activity.
Machine learning is also being used by businesses to generate consumer insights and improve customer service, reduce costs and to automate processes.
But chances are, the data being used for any of these activities - especially as they become more advanced - is in Chinese or English, or possibly Spanish or French, the most popular languages fueling this artificial intelligence boom, according to Prof Elnagar.
The challenges are twofold: the complexity of the language and the amount of resources and research being put into its development.
Arabic is "structurally ambiguous", according to Prof Elnagar, lacking capital letters to indicate proper nouns or the start of sentences, for example.
There are also three different types that are recognised, including classical, as in the Quran; the modern standard, which is conversational and seen on TV; and colloquial, which is "gaining traction on social media. It has its own population, its own customers and it is on the rise" and has 20 dialects, Prof Elnagar said.
The variability and ambiguity in meaning make Arabic very challenging to train machines to make human-like decisions when they are reading it.
John Lillywhite, the digital transition lead at Al Bawaba, a Jordanian media company, recently helped the company win a grant from Google to tackle this challenge.
The title of his pitch: 'Why Can’t Machines Read Arabic at Scale?'
With financial support from Google, his team will work to make one of the largest Arabic language news archives in the Middle East searchable.
There are commercial and scholarship upsides to making this database searchable, opening it up to third-party publishers and researchers who can extract meaning and insight from the archive. Once the tool is developed, which is expected to take around 18 months, it can be used by other publishing platforms and websites to improve the filtering and finding of Arabic content.
This would be a major milestone for Arabic media - and is a facet of news reading that native English speakers take for granted.
"It would be great if machines could tell the difference between a peace process story and a sporting event in Arabic," Mr Lillywhite told The National. "We're not there yet."
But his work is a sign of progress in the field of machine learning and Arabic, among others. The UAE's dedicated AI university, the Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence, will swing open its doors next January, and the University of Sharjah is seeing greater interest from entrepreneurs and the private sector to find commercial applications for its research.
"I think we will see huge strides in the next decade," Prof Elnagar said. "It is extremely promising."
PROFILE OF CURE.FIT
Started: July 2016
Founders: Mukesh Bansal and Ankit Nagori
Based: Bangalore, India
Sector: Health & wellness
Size: 500 employees
Investment: $250 million
Investors: Accel, Oaktree Capital (US); Chiratae Ventures, Epiq Capital, Innoven Capital, Kalaari Capital, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Piramal Group’s Anand Piramal, Pratithi Investment Trust, Ratan Tata (India); and Unilever Ventures (Unilever’s global venture capital arm)
The biog
Name: Fareed Lafta
Age: 40
From: Baghdad, Iraq
Mission: Promote world peace
Favourite poet: Al Mutanabbi
Role models: His parents
Tightening the screw on rogue recruiters
The UAE overhauled the procedure to recruit housemaids and domestic workers with a law in 2017 to protect low-income labour from being exploited.
Only recruitment companies authorised by the government are permitted as part of Tadbeer, a network of labour ministry-regulated centres.
A contract must be drawn up for domestic workers, the wages and job offer clearly stating the nature of work.
The contract stating the wages, work entailed and accommodation must be sent to the employee in their home country before they depart for the UAE.
The contract will be signed by the employer and employee when the domestic worker arrives in the UAE.
Only recruitment agencies registered with the ministry can undertake recruitment and employment applications for domestic workers.
Penalties for illegal recruitment in the UAE include fines of up to Dh100,000 and imprisonment
But agents not authorised by the government sidestep the law by illegally getting women into the country on visit visas.
More on animal trafficking
My Country: A Syrian Memoir
Kassem Eid, Bloomsbury
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TO A LAND UNKNOWN
Director: Mahdi Fleifel
Starring: Mahmoud Bakri, Aram Sabbah, Mohammad Alsurafa
Rating: 4.5/5
Our legal columnist
Name: Yousef Al Bahar
Advocate at Al Bahar & Associate Advocates and Legal Consultants, established in 1994
Education: Mr Al Bahar was born in 1979 and graduated in 2008 from the Judicial Institute. He took after his father, who was one of the first Emirati lawyers
CREW
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How to register as a donor
1) Organ donors can register on the Hayat app, run by the Ministry of Health and Prevention
2) There are about 11,000 patients in the country in need of organ transplants
3) People must be over 21. Emiratis and residents can register.
4) The campaign uses the hashtag #donate_hope
UAE tour of Zimbabwe
All matches in Bulawayo
Friday, Sept 26 – UAE won by 36 runs
Sunday, Sept 28 – Second ODI
Tuesday, Sept 30 – Third ODI
Thursday, Oct 2 – Fourth ODI
Sunday, Oct 5 – First T20I
Monday, Oct 6 – Second T20I
The years Ramadan fell in May
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Six large-scale objects on show
- Concrete wall and windows from the now demolished Robin Hood Gardens housing estate in Poplar
- The 17th Century Agra Colonnade, from the bathhouse of the fort of Agra in India
- A stagecloth for The Ballet Russes that is 10m high – the largest Picasso in the world
- Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1930s Kaufmann Office
- A full-scale Frankfurt Kitchen designed by Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, which transformed kitchen design in the 20th century
- Torrijos Palace dome
The UAE's journey to space
Indoor cricket World Cup:
Insportz, Dubai, September 16-23
UAE fixtures:
Men
Saturday, September 16 – 1.45pm, v New Zealand
Sunday, September 17 – 10.30am, v Australia; 3.45pm, v South Africa
Monday, September 18 – 2pm, v England; 7.15pm, v India
Tuesday, September 19 – 12.15pm, v Singapore; 5.30pm, v Sri Lanka
Thursday, September 21 – 2pm v Malaysia
Friday, September 22 – 3.30pm, semi-final
Saturday, September 23 – 3pm, grand final
Women
Saturday, September 16 – 5.15pm, v Australia
Sunday, September 17 – 2pm, v South Africa; 7.15pm, v New Zealand
Monday, September 18 – 5.30pm, v England
Tuesday, September 19 – 10.30am, v New Zealand; 3.45pm, v South Africa
Thursday, September 21 – 12.15pm, v Australia
Friday, September 22 – 1.30pm, semi-final
Saturday, September 23 – 1pm, grand final
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Jetour T1 specs
Engine: 2-litre turbocharged
Power: 254hp
Torque: 390Nm
Price: From Dh126,000
Available: Now
Wicked
Director: Jon M Chu
Stars: Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, Jonathan Bailey
Indian construction workers stranded in Ajman with unpaid dues
Western Region Asia Cup T20 Qualifier
Sun Feb 23 – Thu Feb 27, Al Amerat, Oman
The two finalists advance to the Asia qualifier in Malaysia in August
Group A
Bahrain, Maldives, Oman, Qatar
Group B
UAE, Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia
Company profile
Name: Steppi
Founders: Joe Franklin and Milos Savic
Launched: February 2020
Size: 10,000 users by the end of July and a goal of 200,000 users by the end of the year
Employees: Five
Based: Jumeirah Lakes Towers, Dubai
Financing stage: Two seed rounds – the first sourced from angel investors and the founders' personal savings
Second round raised Dh720,000 from silent investors in June this year
The specs: Lamborghini Aventador SVJ
Price, base: Dh1,731,672
Engine: 6.5-litre V12
Gearbox: Seven-speed automatic
Power: 770hp @ 8,500rpm
Torque: 720Nm @ 6,750rpm
Fuel economy: 19.6L / 100km
ELIO
Starring: Yonas Kibreab, Zoe Saldana, Brad Garrett
Directors: Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi, Adrian Molina
Rating: 4/5
Results
2.30pm: Park Avenue – Conditions (PA) Dh80,000 (Dirt) 2,000m; Winner: Rb Seqondtonone, Abdul Aziz Al Balushi (jockey), Helal Al Alawi (trainer)
3.05pm: Al Furjan – Maiden (TB) Dh82,500 (Turf) 1,200m; Winner: Bosphorus, Dane O’Neill, Bhupat Seemar
3.40pm: Mina – Rated Condition (TB) Dh105,000 (D) 1,600m; Winner: Royal Mews, Tadhg O’Shea, Bhupat Seemar
4.15pm: Aliyah – Handicap (TB) Dh87,500 (T) 1,900m; Winner: Ursa Minor, Ray Dawson, Ahmad bin Harmash
4.50pm: Riviera Beach – Rated Conditions (TB) Dh95,000 (D) 2,200m; Winner: Woodditton, Saif Al Balushi, Ahmad bin Harmash
5.25pm: Riviera – Handicap (TB) Dh2,000 (T) 2,000m; Winner: Al Madhar, Antonio Fresu, Musabah Al Muhairi
6pm: Creek Views – Handicap (TB) Dh95,000 (T) 1,400m; Winner: Al Salt, Dane O’Neill, Erwan Charpy
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