Datasets are foundational to many breakthroughs in modern artificial intelligence. Many recent achievements in the space of natural language processing (NLP) can be attributed to the finetuning of pre-trained models on a diverse set of tasks that enables a large language model (LLM) to respond to instructions. Instruction fine-tuning (IFT) requires specifically constructed and annotated datasets. However, existing datasets are almost all in the English language. In this work, our primary goal is to bridge the language gap by building a human-curated instruction-following dataset spanning 65 languages. We worked with fluent speakers of languages from around the world to collect natural instances of instructions and completions. Furthermore, we create the most extensive multilingual collection to date, comprising 513 million instances through templating and translating existing datasets across 114 languages. In total, we contribute four key resources: we develop and open-source the Aya Annotation Platform, the Aya Dataset, the Aya Collection, and the Aya Evaluation Suite. The Aya initiative also serves as a valuable case study in participatory research, involving collaborators from 119 countries. We see this as a valuable framework for future research collaborations that aim to bridge gaps in resources.
@article{arxiv.2402.06619,
title = {Aya Dataset: An Open-Access Collection for Multilingual Instruction Tuning},
author = {Shivalika Singh and Freddie Vargus and Daniel Dsouza and Börje F. Karlsson and Abinaya Mahendiran and Wei-Yin Ko and Herumb Shandilya and Jay Patel and Deividas Mataciunas and Laura OMahony and Mike Zhang and Ramith Hettiarachchi and Joseph Wilson and Marina Machado and Luisa Souza Moura and Dominik Krzemiński and Hakimeh Fadaei and Irem Ergün and Ifeoma Okoh and Aisha Alaagib and Oshan Mudannayake and Zaid Alyafeai and Vu Minh Chien and Sebastian Ruder and Surya Guthikonda and Emad A. Alghamdi and Sebastian Gehrmann and Niklas Muennighoff and Max Bartolo and Julia Kreutzer and Ahmet Üstün and Marzieh Fadaee and Sara Hooker},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2402.06619},
year = {2024}
}