Experts Collaborate to Advance AI Applications for Arabic Language

The third annual conference of the King Salman Global Academy for the Arabic Language included intensive sessions focused on new ideas to enrich linguistic data in a digital world (King Salman Global Academy for the Arabic Language)
The third annual conference of the King Salman Global Academy for the Arabic Language included intensive sessions focused on new ideas to enrich linguistic data in a digital world (King Salman Global Academy for the Arabic Language)
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Experts Collaborate to Advance AI Applications for Arabic Language

The third annual conference of the King Salman Global Academy for the Arabic Language included intensive sessions focused on new ideas to enrich linguistic data in a digital world (King Salman Global Academy for the Arabic Language)
The third annual conference of the King Salman Global Academy for the Arabic Language included intensive sessions focused on new ideas to enrich linguistic data in a digital world (King Salman Global Academy for the Arabic Language)

International experts from 22 countries have met in Riyadh for two days to discuss how artificial intelligence (AI) can enhance the Arabic language's role globally and regionally.

The conference highlighted Arabic as an important language in various scientific and humanitarian fields.

The third annual conference of the King Salman Global Academy for the Arabic Language included intensive sessions focused on new ideas to enrich linguistic data in a digital world.

Several digital initiatives were launched under the theme “Computational Linguistics and Enrichment of Linguistic Data.”

Around 40 researchers from universities and organizations worldwide attended the event, providing a platform for sharing expertise and advancing knowledge in computational linguistics.

Dr. Abdullah Al-Washmi, Secretary-General of the Academy, stated that languages that endure are those that adapt to written forms. He stressed that future languages must embrace technology and AI to thrive.

In his opening remarks, Al-Washmi described the conference as a valuable opportunity for collaboration among experts. He emphasized the importance of sharing ideas that can lead to a brighter future for the Arabic language in the digital age.

The conference aims to foster cooperation between linguists and AI specialists to close knowledge gaps and enhance Arabic linguistic data for better AI models.



119-year-old Brazilian Woman Stakes Claim as World's Oldest Person

Deolira Gliceria Pedro da Silva, 119, sits in her house in Itaperuna, Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil, January 14, 2025. REUTERS/Ricardo Moraes
Deolira Gliceria Pedro da Silva, 119, sits in her house in Itaperuna, Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil, January 14, 2025. REUTERS/Ricardo Moraes
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119-year-old Brazilian Woman Stakes Claim as World's Oldest Person

Deolira Gliceria Pedro da Silva, 119, sits in her house in Itaperuna, Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil, January 14, 2025. REUTERS/Ricardo Moraes
Deolira Gliceria Pedro da Silva, 119, sits in her house in Itaperuna, Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil, January 14, 2025. REUTERS/Ricardo Moraes

Two months away from what she says is her 120th birthday, Deolira Gliceria Pedro da Silva, a great-grandmother from the state of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil is rushing to be recognized as the world’s oldest living person by the Guinness World Records.

The institution currently features another Brazilian, Inah Canabarro Lucas, a nun from the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul as the oldest living person at 116 years, but Deolira’s family and doctors are confident that she will soon take the religious woman’s title.

“She is still not in the book, but she is the oldest in the world according to the documents we have on her, as I recently discovered,” said Deolira’s granddaughter Doroteia Ferreira da Silva, who is half her age, Reuters reported.

The documents show that Pedro da Silva was born on March 10th 1905 in the rural area of Porciuncula, a small town in the state of Rio. She now lives in a colorfully painted house in Itaperuna, where her two granddaughters Doroteia, 60, and Leida Ferreira da Silva, 64, take care of her.

The grandmother is also supervised by doctors and researchers who are interested in how she outlived the average life expectancy in Brazil, which currently sits at 76.4 years, by more than four decades.

“Mrs. Deolira, in 2025, will be 120 years old. She is in a good general state of health for her condition, she is not taking any medication,” said geriatric doctor Juair de Abreu Pereira, who checks up on Pedro da Silva frequently and is assisting her family in the process with Guinness World Records.

In a statement, Guinness said it couldn't confirm receiving Pedro da Silva's application, because it receives many from people around the world who claim to be the oldest living person.

Major floods in the region almost twenty years ago destroyed most of Deolira’s original documents, her doctor said. That may pose a challenge for the official recognition of her age.

Even if her age is not precise, Pedro da Silva is certainly older than 100 years, according to Mateus Vidigal, a researcher at the University of Sao Paulo who has studied her case as part of a project to understand the super elderly population of Brazil.

“Mrs. Deolira has not been excluded from the study, but there is this fragility which is the lack of documentation that is approved by those organizations,” Vidigal said, referring to vetting institutions such as the Guinness World Records.

Pedro Silva’s healthy diet and sleeping habits are key to her longevity, according to Dr. Pereira. To this day, she has a good interaction with her family and likes eating bananas.

“I wish I could get to her age and be like that,” Ferreira da Silva, her granddaughter, said. “While we have high blood pressure and diabetes, she does not have any of that.”