Translated alerts that could help millions of people in the U.S. during life-threatening situations will no longer be provided by the National Weather Service, according to reports.
ABC News reported Monday that NWS spokesman Michael Musher said that the service has “paused” translations because its contract with artificial intelligence company Lilt has lapsed. It said Musher declined further comment.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration “referred questions about the contract to a message on its website announcing the contract had lapsed,” said the outlet. “Lilt did not respond to requests for comment.”
This report comes on the heels of a report published by Bloomberg last week about the lapsed Lilt contract. Bloomberg said the contract was valued at $5.8 million over five years, that the agency was waiting to renew its contract with the company and that there are no plans to use other translation services.
According to ABC, Lilt didn’t begin providing translations until late 2023. Previously, the NWS provided manual translations that it said were labor intensive and not sustainable. These translations have been provided in Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, French and Samoan, per ABC, and Bloomberg said they were sent out in around 30 metropolitan areas.
As of 2019, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated that nearly 68 million people in the U.S. spoke a language other than English at home. In 2020, the bureau estimated that 8.3% of people in the nation speak less than “very well” English.
Lilt’s contract lapsed amid efforts to slash government spending by the new administration of President Donald Trump. He established the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to further this initiative, led by his controversial multi-billionaire advisor, Elon Musk. Reuters reported this Tuesday that Musk and DOGE have been using AI to “snoop on U.S. federal workers.”
DOGE claims to have saved the government $140 billion as of this Tuesday, though its figures have been disputed by multiple sources. Per the DOGE website, the savings come from a “combination of asset sales, contract/lease cancellations and renegotiations, fraud and improper payment deletion, grant cancellations, interest savings, programmatic changes, regulatory savings, and workforce reductions.”
Last month, NOAA began plans to lay off 10% of its workforce as part of the Trump administration cuts, according to an Associated Press report. Last week, the AP reported that nearly half of the NWS offices had 20% vacancy rates.
Longtime meteorologist Paul Douglas told Audacy in March that he was puzzled over the cuts at NOAA.
“It’s not a luxury, it’s a necessity, and we shouldn’t have to pay for information that could save our lives,” he said, adding that the move didn’t seem very “efficient” to him.
Douglas isn’t the only expert who was left scratching their head when news of the cuts at NOAA came out. Admiral Tim Gallaudet, who Trump appointed as acting NOAA chief during his first administration, said the moves put lives at risk and will have an impact on flight safety and shipping safety. Former NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad said it will affect the economy as well as safety.
“The death toll from severe weather has gone down, and that’s because we have the best weather service in the world that has the best technology in the world,” Douglas said. He believes that the Trump administration’s cuts were partially motivated by the NOAA connecting the dots on climate change.
Regarding the lack of translated products specifically, Joseph Trujillo-Falcón, a researcher at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign who has worked with NOAA, said the lack could be a matter of life and death.