ASTANA – ChatGPT’s growing development in the Kazakh language highlights a broader challenge for artificial intelligence: understanding a language also requires understanding the cultural context behind it, futurist and author Ron Immink told The Astana Times.
Kazakhstan’s efforts to build Kazakh-language datasets and culturally specific AI benchmarks show why AI systems need to reflect the diversity of languages and cultures. Photo credit: AI-generated image/ The Astana Times A joint project between the Qazaq Tili international association and OpenAI has developed a specialized AI Evaluation Benchmark Suite designed around the linguistic and cultural characteristics of Kazakh.
Developed originally in Kazakh rather than translated from English, the benchmark evaluates large language models on grammar, naturalness of speech, proverbs and fixed expressions, academic and literary translation, children’s literature, safety and ethnography.
A separate 500-question benchmark tests knowledge of Kazakh history, traditions and culture. The project also focuses on building the data foundation for Kazakh-language AI. The Kazakh Text Corpus has reached 14 billion tokens, covering different periods of language development and diaspora heritage, as well as education, science, technology, economics, law, medicine, history, ethnography, media and children’s content.
Materials include text, audio and images. Rauan Kenzhekhanuly, president of the Qazaq Tili international association, said during a Sept. 3 presentation that more than 10 billion tokens were initially collected from archives, museums, libraries and other sources after obtaining the necessary permissions.
The goal is to improve ChatGPT in Kazakh, including translation, information work and speech, text and audio recognition, while reducing culturally inaccurate responses. The approach reflects Immink’s argument that AI development must account for cultural context.
“I think it is also going to be about context and culture. And I think we are definitely missing a trick. The problem is that most AIs are in English, but it should be in Navajo. It should be in hundreds of languages that we have. So it gets a much more deeper context,” he said.
Kazakhstan’s work demonstrates what this could mean in practice: developing AI in a language is not simply a translation exercise, but an effort to preserve the linguistic and cultural context carried by that language. The initiative also complements Kazakhstan’s broader cooperation with OpenAI in education.
Valerie Focke, OpenAI’s lead for education across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, described Kazakhstan as “a pioneer and early mover” in AI adoption and said the country was among the first globally to collaborate with OpenAI on the future of education. As AI becomes increasingly embedded in education and everyday information access, ensuring that systems understand different languages and cultures could become important not only for technological development, but also for maintaining the digital representation of individual peoples and their cultural heritage.