Will Artificial Intelligence accelerate Bible translation? Will it produce better translations than humans can? Will it eliminate the need for human translators? These and other questions swirl around discussions of Bible translation in the AI era. Birch Champeon of unfoldingWord’s Tools and Technology Innovation team outlines three critical points in our approach to using AI.

First, the goal is to equip churches with the enduring ability to meet their spiritual needs for generations, not just rapidly produce Bibles. The typical understanding of AI in Bible translation is just some computer scientists sitting down and crunching numbers that spit out a Bible translation at the end. We want to leverage this technology for the glory of God, to spread the gospel, and to ground new churches in biblical theology. Equipping them with everything they need to translate the Bible with excellence strengthens their spiritual roots and enables them to do that not once but for generations.

Second, AI is a machine, not a person. Leveraging new technologies is the historical norm for mission-minded Christians. The printing press, radio, television, and the internet are good examples. But Bible translation is a technological and a spiritual exercise. Translators cannot allow the technology to distract them or obscure the truth. AI is not actually intelligent. It is a prediction engine that makes educated guesses that are only as good as the available data. Early versions slowed translators down. Now, AI is more capable, but it must be used wisely. Human translators validate all AI-generated text against resources known to be trustworthy.

Finally, unfoldingWord’s Bible Translation Book Packages constitute a vast data set from which AI tools can rapidly create helpful initial drafts of Bible translation resources in Strategic Languages. unfoldingWord’s Greek and Hebrew experts produce notes for each book of the Bible that assist Bible translators as they break down a passage for translation. We have manually produced tens of thousands of these notes. That huge data set makes AI a valuable tool in the initial drafts of those resources into the world’s strategic languages. Experts can then edit and format that draft into a valuable resource for translators.

We pray that our software development work will equip churches worldwide to faithfully follow the Word of God and translate it faster than ever before.