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Writing from CLERC.
Notes on sign language, native infrastructure, datasets, and the future of multimodal AI.
October 5, 2026
HandsIn x CLERC: Building the Future of Sign Language Learning
CLERC is partnering with HandsIn, the ASL learning platform, to power its sign recognition with data recorded by native Deaf signers. Sign language AI is not only about translation. It is also about how the next generation learns to sign.
September 29, 2026
Frontier AI Still Does Not Read Sign Language. Data Is the Difference.
We gave GPT-6 Sol, Claude Opus 5.5 and Claude Opus 5 our sign language exam, Épée 200. The best of them scored 0.112 macro-F1. Gallaudet 1.3, the model behind our live demo, scored 0.779 on the same signs. A newer model helps a little. Data helps far more.
September 23, 2026
The Names We Carry: Épée, Gallaudet, Clerc
Today is the International Day of Sign Languages. I dedicate it to the people who marked our history, because their names are written into every part of CLERC.
September 14, 2026
A Four-Second Avatar Is Not a Benchmark. That Is the Point.
SonZo AI just published the first external evaluation of CLERC data, under the 7 Production Gates. The avatar is the best result so far, and the review says it is a pilot, not a benchmark. Here is why that honesty is the whole collaboration.
August 18, 2026
Nobody Talks About the Language
Interpreters will not disappear, and fixing deafness is not the point. The real risk with sign language AI is quieter: a flattened, biased version of the language becoming the standard.
August 11, 2026
The Deaf Digital Heritage
For centuries, sign language lived only inside physical communities. The Deaf Digital Heritage is the structured, permanent corpus that changes that: built by the Deaf community, protected in Deaf hands, opened to the world.
August 3, 2026
Six Months That Beat Five Years
The last six months of CLERC produced more than the five years before them combined. The tools arrived for everyone at the same time. The difference is usage, and for Deaf founders the shift runs deeper than speed.
July 9, 2026
The Sign Language AI Dataset Landscape in 2026
WLASL, How2Sign, ASL Citizen, YouTube-SL-25, GoSign.AI: there have never been more sign language datasets. So why can't AI labs ship? An honest map of the landscape, and where the real gaps are.
July 6, 2026
Four Months, Less Than $1,000, and One Conviction: Data Comes First
CLERC's first public sign language recognition demo reached up to 71% accuracy on an unseen signer after four months, less than $1,000, and a Deaf-led data build.
June 22, 2026
Why Foundation Models Need ASL Training Data
Every major foundation model lab is missing the same thing: a sign language modality. Here is why ASL training data is not optional for the next generation of multimodal AI, and why generic video datasets do not close the gap.
June 1, 2026
Deaf People Use the Future First
Texting, captions, video calls. Deaf communities used them before the rest of the world caught up. Sign language is next, and this time people are not the only ones following.
April 27, 2026
Deaf Community First
Why CLERC exists because of, not for, the Deaf community and why that is a technical requirement, not a values statement.
April 22, 2026
We Are Not an Accessibility Company. We Are a Technology Company.
CLERC builds sign language AI infrastructure: structured, Deaf-led sign language data for ML labs, translation engines, and research teams. We're a tech company, not an accessibility company, and here's why that distinction matters.
April 13, 2026
From Raw Video to Labeled Signs
Raw footage in, production-ready sign language data out. How the CLERC pipeline transforms video into structured, linguistically grounded data.
April 7, 2026
Why Data, Not the Model
Sign Language AI does not have a model problem first. It has a data problem, and that changes everything.
April 1, 2026
THE CLERC DEMO: From Our Database to Your Use Case
Sign language has never had an ImageNet moment. CLERC is building the data foundation that makes sign language AI viable — and the demo shows exactly what that means in practice.
March 29, 2026
Manifesto of CLERC: The Foundation for the Next Generation of Sign Language AI
For nearly a decade, I have been obsessed with one challenge: breaking the communication barrier through technology.