The government will make Norwegian and Sami language models possible

- Right now we – the Minister of Digitalisation and Public Governance, the Minister of Culture and Equality, and I – are working on the possibility of creating a unit that can produce Norwegian and Sami language models. Such a unit would become an important part of our national infrastructure for AI.

Adressing the NorwAI Innovate Conference 2024, the Minister of Research and Higher Education, Oddmund Hoel, gave an insight into his present work in the digitization of the country. 

The news was appreciated at SFI NorwAI – one of the main promoters of national language models for the last years. The minister told his audience that it was on a trip to California last year he had reached this conviction which he never had imagined in his younger days:  

- In the years of my childhood, in the 1970s, robots were mostly limited to science fiction stories such as Star Wars and our beloved friends C-3PO and R2-D2. In my later youth, however, it was not robots that occupied the most of my time. It was the Norwegian language. I was tirelessly engaged in the political movement Norsk Målungdom, which fought for nynorsk – one of the two variants of the Norwegian language. 

50 years later

50 years later he arrived at Silicon Valley with a government  delegation.

- And I must say, it was not in my wildest dreams that 50 years later – in 2023, during a delegation visit to Silicon Valley and companies such as Nvidia and Open AI – I would become 100 percent convinced that Norway must put significant efforts and money into artificial intelligence and High Performance Computing. Why? To develop smart robots. 

He also admitted nor had he imagined that such investments would turn out to be fundamental for preserving the Norwegian languages and values. 
- And even more: Investment in High Performance Computing will make us far better equipped to tackle some of the greatest challenges of our time. From climate change and global instability to future health care challenges. 

Earlier the same day, the minister and his colleague Karianne Tung had leaked news from the state budget that the government would invest millions in more compute power to the Sigma 2 supercomputers as part of the digital infrastructure of Norway for research, for public administration and the production of AI models.

How to succeed?

Oddmund Hoel said this lead him to the main answer to the question: “What will it take for Norway to succeed”?

Because, what does it mean “to succeed”? To me, it means developing AI that benefits the nation as a whole. 

- We should approach AI in the same way as we did when we started using rivers and waterfalls to produce electricity, or when we discovered oil. The state needs to take an active role in the accelerating processes we are now facing.

Three more points

In this “recipe for success”, there are at least three other points that need to be mentioned:  

- Research, regulation and priorities, the minister said. . 

First, when talking about AI, research and science are always present. Without research, no AI. That is why the government have increased funding for AI research with at least one billion NOK over the next five years. 

But secondly, also regulation is needed. When speaking about AI, there is always a fine balance between opportunities and restrictions. 
- We need to be ahead of the curve, but we need to do it wisely, he said.

The government works along several paths related to regulation. First of all, the AI Act in Norway should be implemented as quickly as possible. The government also work to influence AI-related treaties within the UN, OECD and the Council of Europe.
In addition to this, it is important to remember that Norway has technology-neutral regulatory framework that also applies for AI like the data protection regulation, the Equality and Anti-discrimination Act and the Working Environment Act.

Priority

- Lastly, I cannot underline enough the importance of priorities. We cannot do everything at once – at least not successfully. I have already mentioned some of our top priorities. We need more compute, large Norwegian language models, regulation and research, Oddmund Hoel finished.  

By Rolf D. Svendsen

2024-09-27