Natural language processing (NLP) plays a significant role in tools for the COVID-19 pandemic response, from detecting misinformation on social media to helping to provide accurate clinical information or summarizing scientific research. However, the approaches developed thus far have not benefited all populations, regions or languages equally. We discuss ways in which current and future NLP approaches can be made more inclusive by covering low-resource languages, including alternative modalities, leveraging out-of-the-box tools and forming meaningful partnerships. We suggest several future directions for researchers interested in maximizing the positive societal impacts of NLP.
翻译:自然语言处理(NLP)在应对COVID-19大流行的工具方面发挥着重要作用,从发现社交媒体上的错误信息到帮助提供准确的临床信息或总结科学研究,然而,迄今制定的办法并没有使所有人口、地区或语言都平等受益,我们讨论了如何通过涵盖低资源语言,包括替代方式、利用箱外工具和形成有意义的伙伴关系,使目前和今后的NLP方法更具包容性,我们为有兴趣最大限度地发挥NLP的积极社会影响的研究人员提出了若干未来方向。