CCRI: Planning-C: Facilitating Language Technologies for Crisis Response (LT4CR)

数字时代的到来，使得自然语言处理技术在灾难响应中具有重要的应用前景。例如，语言技术可用于根据短信对紧急援助的需求进行分类，翻译与正在发生的流行病有关的大量数据，或参与对话以指导自然灾害受害者。然而，这些进步仅限于当今世界使用或使用的6500多种语言中的几十种，忽视了数百万人，扩大了“数字鸿沟”，有效地降低了技术在现实世界中的实用性。CISE计算研究基础设施（CCRI）计划拨款将为危机/灾难响应的语言技术制定一条具体的道路，这将对每个人都有用。这需要发展关键的基础设施，以支持对技术解决方案的研究，从而在危机情况下实现和支持通信。具体而言，该项目将对危机应对的语言技术进行全面调查，以确定利益相关者和文献差距。然后，该团队将策划研究基础设施的计划，该计划将包括适用于精心策划的危机/灾难场景的数据集，这些场景与与弱势群体沟通所必需的原型语言场景相关联。计划阶段将通过研讨会传播结果，研讨会将汇集专注于自然语言处理的研究人员、救灾、语言学和人机交互方面的专家，以及来自当地语言社区的代表，以促进一个专注于危机应对语言技术的研究社区，并有来自所有利益相关者的代表。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The advent of digital era has made natural language processing (NLP) technology both promising and important for disaster response. Language technologies can, for instance, be used for triaging the need for immediate assistance based on text messages, translating vast amounts of data related to ongoing pandemics, or engage in conversations to guide natural disaster victims. However, these advances are only limited to a few dozen of the more than 6500 languages spoken or signed in the world today, neglecting millions of people and widening the "digital divide", effectively reducing the technologies' real-world utility.This CISE Computing Research Infrastructure (CCRI) planning grant will lay out a concrete path to language technologies for crisis/disaster response that will be useful for everyone. This requires developing crucial infrastructure to support research towards technological solutions that enable and support communications in crisis scenarios. Specifically, the project will produce a thorough survey of language technologies for crisis response, in order to identify stakeholders and literature gaps. The team will then curate plans for research instrastructure, which will consist of datasets applicable to carefully curated crisis/disaster scenarios tied to prototypical language scenarios that are necessary for communicating with vulnerable populations. The planning phase will disseminate the results via a workshop, which will bring together researchers focusing on NLP, experts in disaster relief, linguistics, and human-computer interaction, as well as representatives from local speech communities, to facilitate a research community focused on language technologies for crisis response with representation from all stakeholders.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.