Meet the Women Shaping Responsible AI - Preserving Culture in the Digital Age: How Anna Mae Yu Lamentillo is Using AI to Save Endangered Languages

In the Philippines, where more than 180 languages are spoken, many are at risk of disappearing within a generation. For Anna Mae Yu Lamentillo, founder and Chief Future Officer of NightOwl AI, that reality is both personal and urgent. A member of the Karay-a ethnolinguistic group, she is on a mission to ensure that indigenous voices are not left behind in the age of artificial intelligence.

Her work sits at the crossroads of technology, cultural preservation, and social equity. With a career spanning government, academia, and advocacy, Lamentillo is now building AI tools that document and revitalize endangered languages – a project that has earned her recognition as 2024/25 She Shapes AI Global Awards AI and Learning winner.

“Only about two percent of the world’s languages receive AI funding,” she explains. “Ninety percent are completely ignored. When we talk about fairness in AI, it shouldn’t just be about race or gender – it must include linguistic diversity too.”

Building Technology that Speaks for Everyone

Lamentillo founded NightOwl AI to challenge the concentration of AI resources around dominant global languages. Her team is creating natural language processing (NLP) frameworks tailored for indigenous tongues – systems that “speak to the people they represent.” In just two years, the project has expanded its database to over two million words and forged partnerships with indigenous communities across the Philippines and beyond. “What began in my dorm room now operates with a volunteer network spanning 20 countries, including the Philippines, Colombia, Ghana, and the United Kingdom”. 

Anna Mae Yu Lamentillo was also selected to join the One Young World Indigenous Advisory Circle, a network representing 15,000 young people and 200 indigenous organizations. “Our original goal was language preservation,” she says. “But now, we’re developing an AI model that empowers marginalized and disenfranchised communities to participate in the digital world.” Over the past two years, NightOwl AI has grown from a team of five volunteers to an organization recognized by groups such as She Shapes AI. Today, it is part of the Worldwide Alliance for AI and Democracy and serves as a UN-recognized civil society partner. The organization has also partnered with media outlets to pilot AI systems that deliver news in Tagalog, Bisaya, Ilokano, and Karay-a; co-created free and open dictionaries with diverse communities; and contributed to an international fairness framework that embeds language inclusion throughout the AI development process.

Redefining Leadership in AI

For Lamentillo, leadership means collaboration rather than control. She emphasizes that preserving languages must happen with communities, not for them. “Many of these languages aren’t even written down,” she notes. “We can’t move forward without the consent of the people whose heritage we’re trying to preserve. It’s their knowledge, their words, their stories. So far, we preserved oral stories and texts in Tagalog, Karay-a, Urdu, and Bisaya, and digitized archives dating back to the 1930s.”

She also challenges the notion that AI systems are truly “open.” Most, she says, are black boxes with opaque data sources. Her team takes a different approach – developing smaller, community-owned AI systems that prioritize transparency and ethical data collection. “We want AI that is controlled by the people who created it,” Lamentillo says. “Technology should empower, not exploit.”

Responsible AI as a Matter of Inclusion

Over the past year, her views on responsible AI have continued to evolve. The NightOwl AI model has gone through more than 200 revisions, each shaped by academic research and community feedback. The prototype, still under academic review, isn’t designed to compete with giants like OpenAI or Google. Instead, Lamentillo hopes to inspire major players to allocate resources toward underrepresented languages. She warns that the global conversation around AI often overlooks the realities of developing regions. “In Europe or the U.S., people are talking about AI’s potential. But in some parts of the world, people don’t even know what AI is – or how it might affect their livelihoods,” she says. “We need to make sure access to AI is a choice, not a privilege.”

Economic inequality also plays a role in language loss. Jobs linked to English or Mandarin often pay more, reinforcing linguistic hierarchies. “AI can help reverse that,” she says, “by proving that smaller languages are not just relevant but vital to our shared digital future.”

A Vision for an Inclusive AI Future

For Lamentillo, the ultimate goal is representation. “When a child in the Philippines searches for a president, the results shouldn’t only show white male figures,” she says. “When they speak to their AI system, it should understand them – in their dialect, in their reality.”

As AI becomes embedded in every part of society, she believes inclusivity must be built into its foundations. “We’re entering the AI revolution,” she concludes, “and we have a responsibility to make sure every voice is heard.”

Anna Mae Yu Lamentillo was a winner of the 2024/25 She Shapes AI Global Awards for AI and Learning. Learn more about NightOwl AI’s work in democratic innovation and the Democratic Commons research programme at thenightowl.ai.