Building LLMs for Bharat
2024-02-10India is home to multitude of languages and thousands of dialects, including 22 official languages. To achieve fluency in a language, a LLM (Large Language Model) requires extensive training data. Currently, most LLMs rely on internet data, with 59% being in English (Statistica) which is not an adequate source efficient in diverse Indian languages and dialects. Therefore, it is significant to create LLMs in India, closer to the written and verbal sources of these languages.
Bharat, with its rich linguistic heritage and diverse population, presents a unique challenge and opportunity for the development of large language models (LLMs). Building LLMs specifically for Bharat requires a nuanced approach that goes beyond simply scaling up existing models trained on Western data.
Bharat boasts 22 official languages and hundreds of dialects, each with its own grammar, vocabulary, and nuances. Training LLMs on this diverse linguistic landscape is crucial for inclusivity and accuracy. Understanding the specific historical, social, and cultural context of Bharat is essential for LLMs to generate meaningful and relevant responses.
Compared to English, there is a significant lack of high-quality, readily available training data for Indian languages. Addressing this data gap is critical for building robust and effective LLMs. LLMs trained on biased data can perpetuate harmful stereotypes and prejudices. Mitigating bias and ensuring fairness in LLMs for Bharat is crucial.
Several initiatives are underway to address these challenges and build LLMs for Bharat like:
Project Vaani: it was Launched by IIT Madras. Project Vaani aims to create a large corpus of text and speech data in Indian languages.
Bhashini Project: This initiative by IIT Bombay focuses on building LLMs for multiple Indian languages, with a focus on low-resource languages.
Project Indus: Developed by Tech Mahindra, Project Indus aims to create a general-purpose LLM for Bharat, catering to the diverse needs of its population.
Building LLMs for Bharat has the potential to revolutionize various sectors, including education, healthcare, government services, and entertainment. By overcoming the challenges and fostering inclusive development, LLMs can bridge the digital divide and empower millions of people across the country.
Building LLMs for Bharat is a complex but exciting journey. By addressing the unique challenges and capitalizing on the country's rich linguistic heritage, we can unlock the immense potential of this technology to empower and benefit millions of people.
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