| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3] > | Do people ask you if A.I. will kill translation? Here's what to answer Thread poster: Tom in London
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Baran Keki 
Türkiye
Local time: 09:34
Member
English to Turkish
| It's a good job you didn't listen to your teacher | Nov 19, 2023 |
P.L.F. Persio wrote:
It was our last year at school, and our math teacher asked us about our plans for the future.
He approved of the two bright girls who were going to study physics.
He scoffed at the overwhelming majority, ready to plain sail the waters of a law degree – always a safe bet in a country like Italy, with its unquenchable, if masochistic thirst for more bureaucracy and Byzantine regulations.
When I and another couple of girls finally declared that we were going to keep on studying languages (a subject our secondary school specialised in, with me learning English, French, and German there, with some Latin on the side), he was utterly dismayed.
I was reading your favourite newspaper today  And my eye fell on this article:
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/nov/19/i-am-lonely-and-isolated-living-like-a-zombie-philippa-perry
The letter writer says: "I’ve never recovered from my grammar school forcing me to give up languages – which I loved and was top in – and do science A-levels. Scraping a third-class degree in chemistry was just the start of living all my life as a lost soul."
So, I guess the takeaway here is that the love for languages, when denied, might lead to a sad solitary life...
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Maria G. Grassi, M.A. wrote:
Sorry if I step in, I would just like to point out that maybe not speaking Italian could prevent one from really seeing and truly appreciating the difference between Tom’s translation and the AI translation.
Tom’s translation is simply flawless and preserved every most minute detail and nuance of the Italian source.
The other version yeah, we still get what it’s saying, but it’s poor and sloppy, even when it’s technically not wrong. It’s a translation done by someone who either can’t perfectly understand Italian or just couldn’t be a**ed that day.
It’s not just a giggle and a fix to turn the AI translation into Tom’s translation.
You’re right, I don’t know Italian, but the two texts are not very different. I really do not think it would take longer to knock the AI into shape than start from scratch. It’s about the same as most human translations that I see.
My point is more that this is just the beginning.
Of course I may be wrong about where things are headed, but my bank clients are introducing AI all over the show without confidentiality or the current limitations of the technology putting them off.
I am already losing work because of AI and I’m at the top end of the market.
Anyway, that video was five minutes of my life that I would like to have back.
| | | | | You are right | Nov 19, 2023 |
Beatriz Ramírez de Haro wrote:
How many clients care or are willing to pay for flawless translations?
This is a complementary problem, like a yin to the yang.
Clients can get away with not caring and with that slop extravaganza because the end-user also doesn’t care.
He said it better than I ever could:
Metin Demirel wrote:
The profession is not dead yet, but it is dying. Because the client is dying. The end-user is dying. Reading is dying.
[…]
| | | | Dan Lucas
United Kingdom
Local time: 07:34
Member (2014)
Japanese to English
| Grim reading | Nov 19, 2023 |
Baran Keki wrote:
The letter writer says: "I’ve never recovered from my grammar school forcing me to give up languages – which I loved and was top in – and do science A-levels. Scraping a third-class degree in chemistry was just the start of living all my life as a lost soul."
Dear me, this really is sad. Finding it hard to be sympathetic. The letter-writer is 70 years old (and comfortably retired) and is still blaming his school for ruining his life? I'm willing to bet that the school didn't force him to take sciences, and even if they did - how, by putting a gun to his head? - then who forced him to go to university? What stopped him from going to live in France or some other country after leaving school?
I know the modern narrative, particularly in the UK, is that life is all about luck and that success is essentially undeserved (and thus successful people are intrinsically suspect, and envy of them is fully justified) but luck cuts both ways - how could it be otherwise, if luck is truly random?
People are smiled on by fortune and they are dealt buffets by fate. Unless one is involved in something catastrophic, like a life-changing accident early on in life, luck evens out over time for most people. Allowing oneself to be manipulated into choosing sciences at the age of 16 is not a catastrophe.
This man got into a grammar school, so was either bright and/or came from a middle-class background, both of which imply he had a promising future. Indeed, he went on to university at a time when only c.9% of people in the UK achieved that. He was, in other words, a member of a small group with every chance of success.
And even if had he turned his back on that when he left school in 1971 there was still more work, greater opportunity, and less competition than there is today, and it was easier to live abroad too. He could have had a different life; it was all there waiting for him. Could have moved abroad, whatever. He blames others, but it seems to me that his problem was that he was too timid, or too malleable, or too lethargic.
Once the positive and negative effects of luck are removed from the equation, the individuals prepared to work a little harder, think a little longer, or act a little bolder get the rewards. Shy bairns get nowt, for good or ill.
Dan
[Edited at 2023-11-19 22:04 GMT]
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Chris Spurgin
United Kingdom
Local time: 07:34
Member (2016)
Russian to English
+ ...
| Lots of translators ask the question. My crystal ball is still in the post, sadly | Nov 21, 2023 |
I actually hope I get to use AI in a positive way before it wipes out the industry, and possibly humanity itself.
I asked AI three things and it got one of them wrong.
| | | | | The fallibility fallacy (TM) | Nov 21, 2023 |
Chris Spurgin wrote:
I asked AI three things and it got one of them wrong.
Lionel Messi misses the goal regularly and he’s the GOAT. Should we expect AI to achieve levels of perfection humans cannot themselves attain? We may be getting to the point where, on average, machines make fewer mistranslations than human translators.
| | | | Baran Keki
Türkiye
Local time: 09:34
Member
English to Turkish
| Liverpool could make a case | Nov 21, 2023 |
Christopher Schröder wrote:
Should we expect AI to achieve levels of perfection humans cannot themselves attain?
They were robbed (raped more like) by human referees and VAR against Spurs earlier this season. It may well cost them the title. Just saying.
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Baran Keki wrote:
robbed by human referees and VAR
VAR is ruining almost every game. AI couldn’t do a worse job.
Again, though, it’s technology causing the problem. All those slow-mo playbacks making everything look worse.
How I wish we could go back to black-and-white men running around all funny in long shorts, and translators actually translating for a living.
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Tomasso
United States
Local time: 00:34
Member (2008)
Spanish to English
+ ...
| Rewriting will live on, | Nov 22, 2023 |
What can be seen is the large amount of MT translation leading to mistranslations, mostly Chinese to English, and people in less common languages trying to make sense of the confusing.
Although having little knowledge of original source, Chinese, Korean, many can back translate bad English to multiple vocabulary in the source. Translation program in California is best at Vietnamese, Tagalog, other MT in Germany is better at Latvian, Estonian and so on.
Having only ... See more What can be seen is the large amount of MT translation leading to mistranslations, mostly Chinese to English, and people in less common languages trying to make sense of the confusing.
Although having little knowledge of original source, Chinese, Korean, many can back translate bad English to multiple vocabulary in the source. Translation program in California is best at Vietnamese, Tagalog, other MT in Germany is better at Latvian, Estonian and so on.
Having only sperficial knowledge of perhaps a dozen languages, reasonable suggestions based on Boolean meanings of each word can be found, and many times with luck, parallel texts can be located, Many German manufacturers will be in multiple languages, the same for factories in China, but little conficence can be placed in some. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 07:34
Member (2008)
Italian to English
TOPIC STARTER | Here's why (again) | Nov 22, 2023 |
I asked ChatGPT:
Why is chatGPT useless for translating any text that has an intention behind it that is not manifest in the text itself?
ChatGPT answered (very long-windedly):
ChatGPT, like other language models, relies on patterns and associations learned from data during training. It excels at tasks that involve understanding and generating language based on the patterns it has learned. However, when it comes to interpreting intentions that are not expli... See more I asked ChatGPT:
Why is chatGPT useless for translating any text that has an intention behind it that is not manifest in the text itself?
ChatGPT answered (very long-windedly):
ChatGPT, like other language models, relies on patterns and associations learned from data during training. It excels at tasks that involve understanding and generating language based on the patterns it has learned. However, when it comes to interpreting intentions that are not explicitly expressed in the text or understanding context beyond the immediate words, it may struggle.
Translation often involves nuances, cultural context, and implied meanings that are not always evident in the text alone. ChatGPT may face challenges in accurately capturing these subtleties, leading to potential inaccuracies or misinterpretations in translation tasks.
For more complex translation needs, especially those requiring a deep understanding of context or nuanced expressions, using specialized translation tools or seeking assistance from human translators is often recommended. AI models like ChatGPT are valuable but have limitations, and understanding these limitations is crucial for obtaining reliable results. ▲ Collapse
| | | | kd42
Estonia
Local time: 09:34
English to Russian
| I don't know Italian | Nov 24, 2023 |
Maria G. Grassi, M.A. wrote:
Sorry if I step in, I would just like to point out that maybe not speaking Italian could prevent one from really seeing and truly appreciating the difference between Tom’s translation and the AI translation.
Tom’s translation is simply flawless and preserved every most minute detail and nuance of the Italian source.
The other version yeah, we still get what it’s saying, but it’s poor and sloppy, even when it’s technically not wrong. It’s a translation done by someone who either can’t perfectly understand Italian or just couldn’t be a**ed that day.
It’s not just a giggle and a fix to turn the AI translation into Tom’s translation. A lot of the AI translation has to be rewritten from scratch indeed.
Mr Schröder, I respect you immensely, but I suspect that those who can’t speak Italian may not get the full picture at its clearest here.
and I even wanted to ask for the original and send it to a friend in Busto for clarifications, but what you seem to miss, exactly because you know Italian and probably the world of Italian fashion, is that the two texts are basically the same, they have the same meaning, emotional impact and to me they are identical. If you think that the tiniest nuances implied in the Italian text must be conveyed in the translation, you are mistaken, this is not necessary and. in most cases, impossible without having half a page of footnotes.
Here's a great piece of reading on the subject, that every translator ought to read, understand, and remember -- http://www2.proz.com/doc/289
| | | | kd42
Estonia
Local time: 09:34
English to Russian
| This relates not only to AI | Nov 24, 2023 |
Tom in London wrote:
I asked ChatGPT:
Why is chatGPT useless for translating any text that has an intention behind it that is not manifest in the text itself?
ChatGPT answered (very long-windedly):
ChatGPT, like other language models, relies on patterns and associations learned from data during training. It excels
I was interpreting for a company which had agreements made behind the scenes, nearly criminal. At some point it was necessary to confirm to their counterparts that the agreements still stand. It was done at the last moment, in a crowded room, I translated the speech mindlessly as usual, the crowd understood it as a formal address, the counterparts understood it as agreement confirmation, which I did too, later in the day. There were situations when I knew that the message has two meanings, sometimes I did not. The key point is that the uninformed and unsuspecting listeners -- educated humans -- missed the underlying message too, just like ChatGPT does. So your example is not valid.
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| Some see it, some don't | Nov 26, 2023 |
The fact that this discussion takes place at all should be evidence enough that AI has already one foot in the door. The second foot is a question of time. And, actually, there is no need to “kill” translation. Forcing growing numbers of translators into MTPE work comes close enough. By my observation, AI is well on its way.
As to why I am here, I have been here for a while and probably will stay around for some more time. I am a paying member because, as one commenter succinctly phra... See more The fact that this discussion takes place at all should be evidence enough that AI has already one foot in the door. The second foot is a question of time. And, actually, there is no need to “kill” translation. Forcing growing numbers of translators into MTPE work comes close enough. By my observation, AI is well on its way.
As to why I am here, I have been here for a while and probably will stay around for some more time. I am a paying member because, as one commenter succinctly phrased it some time back, “someone has to pay for this sh#t.” ▲ Collapse
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 07:34
Member (2008)
Italian to English
TOPIC STARTER
I have just finished translating an architect's report about the project for a new hospital. As an experiment, I tried using chat GPT as a machine translation tool.
It was interesting to see how it tried to "infer/guess" what the translation was, but it was completely useless and I had to rewrite everything myself.
| | | | | Indifference | Nov 27, 2023 |
Tom in London wrote:
As an experiment, I tried using chat GPT as a machine translation tool.
You’re not doing a great job of showing “complete indifference” to AI, Tom.
If you don’t feel at all threatened, why are you at such pains to highlight its weaknesses?
We all know it has its limitations, but it’s its capabilities that are the issue, surely?
As it improves, editing its output will become quicker than translating from scratch for more and more texts, thus decreasing the need for translators, aka killing off translation.
Unless we consider MTPE to be translation, which I don’t.
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