Fed Up With ChatGPT, Latin America Is Building Its Own
- Author: Ananya Bhattacharya
- Full Title: Fed Up With ChatGPT, Latin America Is Building Its Own
- Type:
- Tags: #ai
- URL: https://restofworld.org/2025/chatgpt-latin-america-alternative-latamgpt/?utm_source=Rest+of+World+Newsletter&utm_campaign=3c0dba661a-row-newsletters-global_2025-07-15&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b91e039431-3c0dba661a-446227970
Highlights
- While large language models, including GPT and Meta’s Llama, are trained on a wide range of data in languages other than English, their capability in those languages remains limited, particularly in dialects and local idioms. To address these shortcomings — which have led to inaccuracies and hallucinations, or fabrications — a group of over 30 institutions across Latin America has spent the last two years developing Latam-GPT. The open-source LLM, which will be available to the public in September, is being trained by locals who take language and cultural nuances into account. (View Highlight)
- Latam-GPT is being designed for deep multilingualism and includes Indigenous languages, such as Nahuatl, Quechua, and Mapudungun, as well as dialect variants, including some from the Caribbean, said Bravo. (View Highlight)
- Southeast Asia’s Sea-Lion is a family of open-source LLMs trained in nearly a dozen regional languages besides English. In Africa, users can interact with UlizaLlama in at least five different languages, including Xhosa and Zulu. While, in India, BharatGPT supports over 14 regional languages, with the government recently announcing that it was building its own LLM as well. (View Highlight)
- To be successful, Latam-GPT will need to ensure the participation of “Indigenous peoples, migrant communities, and other historically marginalized groups in the model’s validation,” said Farren. (View Highlight)