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I have a high (>90%) confidence that language barriers will become practically non-existent in the near future with AI advances. It is already technically possible, with apps or products that are able to translate spoken language in near real-time and LLMs that are:
- able to translate the original meaning to a different language increasingly well compared to older translators (such as Google translate which gained a reputation for often having bad translations)
- are becoming increasingly cheap to run due to technical advances
- are becoming increasingly popular, which means progressively using AI to translate will not look irresponsible and nerdy, but mainstream and available options and interfaces will increase.
That said, I have moderate (~40%) confidence that actually knowing a language might become a status symbol and be used to signal intelligence (and it has served this role historically, with for example Latin being the international language of the upper class).
Given these factors, I'd recommend most people to invest into English to the point of being able to communicate (and perhaps use LLMs or similar tools to increase fluency with low time investment) and just... Wait for how it actually turns out with AI. Learning new languages has been tied to lower cognitive decline in old age, so its not like it will be a purely bad investment, and it allows you to have more perspectives on the world (as the quote goes; "the limits of my language are the limits of my world")