WhatsApp’s upcoming translation tool is a boon for non-obvious reasons

WhatApp might soon automatically detect and translate your text messages. If Meta’s recent AI work is anything to go by, voice and video translations shouldn’t be too far off. On the surface, it might seem like a simple translation tool, but there’s more to it than meets the eye.

Just over a year ago, I reported on an app by the Indian government that is used to record attendance and pay over 150 million daily wage workers, who make as little as three dollars per day. Amid problems such as a laggy UI, poor internet connection, and lack of digital literacy, language emerged as a massive barrier in my interviews with these workers, who often travel hundreds of miles to seek work.

For a country with 22 nationally recognized languages and over 100 languages spoken at scale, the lack of proper translation means the underprivileged and the poorest are often at a crippling disadvantage. Official government communication, or those from banking agencies, doesn’t always come in local languages, even though the wires of digital connectivity are now interwoven between half a billion Indians through WhatsApp.

I get alerts from my bank and Amazon as well as milk-delivery and voter ID updates on WhatsApp, just to give you a rough idea. It’s almost surprising, that despite working on open-source translation model projects such as No Language Left Behind (NLLB), Meta didn’t pay any attention to the critical importance of languages on one of its biggest platforms. Late in January, Meta said it plans to invest a whopping $60 billion in AI development this year, which makes the oversight seem even more perplexing.

How WhatsApp can change the game?

I am not a fan of the company’s Meta AI stack, but I do appreciate the utility I get from AI tools such as automatic transcription for voice notes. It seems Meta is finally turning its hands towards the more practical side of “all things AI,” starting with WhatsApp.

The messaging app, which commands nearly three billion users, might soon get an automatic language translation system for chats. The code sleuths at WABetaInfo have spotted pre-release assets for the translation system in WhatsApp, which apparently follows a similar format as Google Translate and its language bundles.

As per the update tracker, users will have to download a dataset worth 24MB in size, which allows the app to automatically detect a language. Once there, they can pick any language of their choice from a scrolling list and install the language bundle to automatically translate all of their WhatsApp chats.

This is a fantastic addition, especially for countries like India, where digital literacy woes have left people at the mercy of scammers. Similar patterns can be witnessed across the rest of Asia and Africa. English, as the default language, often comes associated with an intimidating social capital, which only makes its weaponization even more effective by bad actors targeting the most vulnerable people with fewer digital skills.

This can’t come sooner

Fake government cyber agency letters — written in English and mostly circulated via WhatsApp — have tricked a lot of people in the past few years in India. Many lost a lifetime’s worth of funds. I’ve personally received such a letter on WhatsApp, but conveniently ignored it because there were tell-tale signs of fraud. I, however, attribute that to my digital skills due to a journalism career.

A lot of people can’t sense the scam, and fall for it.

Automatic translations in WhatsApp may not solve the whole problem, but at least an average person will be able to see and comprehend what is being asked of them. Of course, it will make group chats far more exciting, especially in the multilingual pool of friends.

There is real human value in it.

I still know a lot of people who hand their phone to another person, so that they can read aloud the WhatsApp message they received from their friends and family members. I did this for my grandfather not too long ago. I often see people conversing solely via WhatsApp voice notes because they can’t type or don’t understand English.

It is unclear when exactly Meta will push its automatic language translation system in WhatsApp. But its arrival in the beta channel is a sign that the company is at least considering it to a substantial extent. I am hoping that when it eventually arrives, the company goes on a marketing blitz so that more people can take advantage of this perk.