Description
With all the buzz around AI and large language models, it’s easy to assume that machines are already surpassing humans in language ability. But here’s a bold claim: even beginner language learners often outperform AI in key linguistic tasks. As a computational linguist, I spend my days teaching computers how to understand and use language—and I constantly run into problems that humans, even with just a little exposure to a new language, can solve effortlessly. In this talk, I’ll walk you through real-life examples where human intuition, context awareness, and a sense of meaning leave AI in the dust.
Your brain, despite not being a supercomputer, is doing something truly remarkable every time you learn a new word or parse a tricky sentence. Whether you're a polyglot or just starting your language journey, this talk will give you a renewed appreciation for your own linguistic abilities—and maybe a little healthy skepticism about what AI can (and can’t) do.
Judith Meyer is a computational linguist, author, and founder of the Polyglot Gathering. She has written several books for language learners, including the popular Script Hacking series and Teach Yourself Complete Esperanto. When not teaching computers how to process languages, she is studying Croatian and Greek, and she is an activist with DiEM25.
https://learnlangs.com/
This video was recorded at the Polyglot Gathering 2025: https://www.polyglotgathering.com.