From the hills of Appalachia to the melodic tones of the Piedmont, Virginia has some of the most perplexing accents in the country. A survey conducted by the language-learning platform Guide2Fluency shows Appalachia and Piedmont accents have artificial intelligence stumped.
"There's a real sense of equity and fairness in all of this," says Alan Shark, executive director of the Public Technology Institute. "If we are turning more and more to these systems to help us in times of emergency, getting information from government websites or commercial websites, then folks who are not able to communicate with these systems are at a real disadvantage."
J.P. Singh is professor of global commerce and policy at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University.
"There are not large enough data sets to make sense of all the ways in which people in the Piedmont or the Appalachian region use English," Singh says. "This relates to general problems in AI about inclusivity and bias and even facial recognition in the visual AI spaces."
The most misunderstood accent in the United States, according to the survey, is a Southern drawl.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
