“Language is probably one of the most pervasive uses of AI,” says BYU computer science professor Steve D. Richardson (BS ’77, MA ’80).

It’s prophesied in scripture that “every man shall hear the fulness of the gospel in his own tongue” (D&C 90:11), but, asks Richardson, “how is that going to happen when there are 7,000 languages in the world?”

The Pathsay project, a collaborative effort between BYU researchers and BYU Pathway students from all over Africa, are working on a way to bridge the gap by recording audio in low-resource languages like Xhosa, Twi, and Zulu and use it to train AI translation models. Richardson joins Y Magazine podcast host Whitney Singley Archibald (BA ’01) to discuss how the origins of this project, how it’s growing, and how it will serve communities around the world.

This episode is based on the article “Sounded in Every Ear” from the Winter 2026 issue of Y Magazine.

If you enjoyed this episode, you may also enjoy “Tech Support: Parenting Kids to Thrive in a Digital World,” and “BYU’s World Campus with Kennedy Center Director Stan Benfell.”

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