"If AI can translate instantly, why learn another language?" Topic

"From live speech translation in video calls to auto-dubbing on TikTok, the technology to dissolve language barriers has arrived. Real-time translation powered by artificial intelligence (AI) is now embedded in everyday life.

Tools from OpenAI, Meta, Google and many others now offer near-instant translation across dozens of languages, and they keep improving.

All this raises a vital question. If machines can do this faster and more accurately than humans, is investing years in learning another language still worth it?…"

link

Armand

Go to any YouTube from Reddit "stories" with an AI "narrator".
Here is an incomplete list of words that "they" cannot pronounce correctly.
read (Present vs past) (And you can add "present" to the lust too!)
content (Happy or included?)
The pronunciation is of course the context.
The AI can't even generate a coherent story.

If you don't pay very close attention, you can miss the inappropriate pauses and inflections. Just part of making people dumber so we're more docile.

Because AI does a really crappy job of translating language usage.

I thought Babel Fish was the greatest online translator (then of course it got bought out and disappeared…)

Because AI is far from perfect and it screws up.

An example – from a translation of that classic, Hawaii 5-0

"Book 'em, Dan'l – Murder One"

To Hebrew

Back to English

"Daniel – give him a book. One Murder"

My experience is very dated, but when I attended high school and university, the percentage of pretty girls in a language class was much higher than shop or calculus classes. I also found traveling and living in foreign countries knowing a bit of the local language and making the effort to use it went a long way with the local ladies.

pjm

Thanks

Armand

AI trips up now and then, but it's good and will get better. Just be wary, as with using any tool like a car or a table saw.

Learning a language is very good for brain health, broadening, and lets connect with other humans better. A lot of work, though.

AI is not as smart as it thinks it is.

Learning "foreign" languages is an enjoyable challenge?

I will admit to using AI to help me spell Gàidhlig words.
eg my pal Rory's name is spelt "Ruairidh" and "Good night" is spelt "Oidhche mhath" – pronounced "oy-cha vah".

In Italian, the verb conjugations are hard for non-native speakers like me. But I like the challenge.

Because AI makes many hilarious screw-ups: example here from the subtitles to "Waterloo" --

Ha!…

Armand

Your premise falls apart instantly. "If AI can translate instantly…"
But it can't. It's stupid. It can't catch ANY idioms or metaphors.
All it can do is a word for word "translation".
Ask it to take in, from French "n'est ce pas" and see what gobbledygook it spits out. Ask it to take in ANY colloquial phrase from ANY language.

It cant. It's stupid. GIGO

What's GIGO?…

Armand

Garbage In, Garbage Out.

By which Americans mean, Rubbish In, Rubbish Out.
(I sometimes need AI to translate American).

GIGO goes back to my Fortran classes in collij. Yes. Fortran 2. 🙄
That was when I had to type in all the gobbledygook nonsense. Hooray for Windows, and its Satanic spawn.
Computer nerds WERE nerds. With their boxes of cards they carried around like Jesus and His Cross.
I think I got a Gentleman's B in that course.

So, yeah. I hate nerds. Even though I am geeking out on SYW Hungarians. Luckily their history is written with a quill pen.
"History is written by those who write things down."
—-Max on Tasting History

Ah!… thanks!

Armand

The work -- and play -- of thinking in other languages exercises your mind in certain ways that thinking in your own language does not. You can learn from that experience.

Translating is concerned with the transmission of information. That is one aspect of language, but not the only one.