1: @Onyothi thank you so much for explaining the issues and erosion that has happened to various languages, and the lack of internet access in certain rural areas. By the way, I loved the clicks and fascinated to know more about them!

2: I'd love to know more about the subject, but no pressure, because I know Africa is a big continent, yet still, whatever you can tell me about the subject would be greatly appreciated.

3: There is a movement to make the benefits of technology available to all people in the world. Ray Kurzweil and
Peter Diamandis often talk about "radical abundance" which is the idea that exponential technologies could greatly benefit everyone in the world.

4: On the other hand, we have the problem of languages going extinct, which according to Wade Davis is a big problem, and indeed very sad because they document and are part of the history of humanity. The problem was big even years ago.

5: I spoke to my mom whose family originates from the Azerbaijan region of Iran. Her mother tongue was also my own first tongue, but I don't speak it well right now. It's a dialect of Turkish. Iran's official language is Farsi (Persian).

6: Azerbaijan is also split between several countries which makes the condition of the language, specially it's writing systems, pretty complicated: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azerbaijani_language#Writing_systems
So the situation is a lot like what you described.

7: So, I guess, the question in my mind is, to some extent, how can we make the benefits of technology available to the world without destroying these cultural/historical records and information, or making people feel pressured or marginalized?

8: It seems that some of this "dilution" is inevitable if newer generations choose to adopt new technologies and connect themselves to the vast information "superhighway."

9: On the other hand, at NeurIPS 2020, I saw indigenous people doing some amazing decolonization work by recording their elders' (very beautiful) accents and using the data for AI.

10: So, I'm very interested in how other cultures view technology, how open they are to it, what they're concerned about, and what's a good way to introduce it to them.

11: I do have some other things on my mind right now that I must do, but I would still love to learn more about this topic. I think Julia suggested that you write up something about this for ICLR? I'd be more than happy to chat and help with the writing, once I learn more.

12: Please feel free to respond using DM if you prefer. I'd be more than happy to video-chat over WhatsApp and pick up where we left off, if you like that. Thanks a lot for your explanations (and the clicks!).

@nulziiorsh I'm also very interested in Mongolia! :)