AI Killed My Job: Translators
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I've always thought a BASIC international language would be great. I mean, there's already international sign language, and Arabic numerals are pretty universal. Doesn't need to be poetic, or intense. Just "Me want this, I need this" type of structure. Maybe a modified version of Latin, with all gender neutral variants.
Esperanto exists.
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I would consider what you do localization. Translations are 1 aspect of that role
Not really our case. We do English->Spanish, where we try to achieve the most neutral Spanish, as there are many local variations. Think truck/lorry, for example.
It's more translating expressions or phrases that don't convey the same concept. For example, "by the way" could be translated to "por el camino" which doesn't usually have the same usage. -
I know someone who was a translator between two (less widely spoken) languages, and some specifics I recall from our conversations about work:
- Sometimes the translations use many technical terms, and getting those wrong (trusting LLMs) is not an option. (This was for some patents IIRC)
- Some terms simply do not exist in another language, and it could be up to the translator to invent a term to define and carry the information across. (This was for some government digital service, and the term was similar to "digital queue")
- Tone and nuances are very difficult to translate. Phrasing can have implications and connotations. (Simplest example: "i am afraid" does not imply fear, it's an established politeness phrase) Neutral in one language could be viewed as hostile in another, too. (And with politicians being petty, could have consequences)
None of those would be addressed with LLMs. Small training set for language (and language being similar to a few others) is an issue. Anything technical or non-existing would be prone to hallucinations. And tone is difficult enough to convey through text to begin with, let alone with LLM translation.
Unfortunately it doesn’t have to be better than the worker, we all know this sucks at most of the things it’s being touted as great at.
It just has to convince management who make decisions that it’ll save money (or that they can spin it that way) for the next quarter. That alone is enough to destroy people’s lives.
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The world would be soo easy if there was 1 lang. No more translations no more burning money water electricity
Yeah it’s totally worth destroying most cultures on the planet to improve water usage just long enough for the machine to find another way to waste it. Terrible take.
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I know someone who was a translator between two (less widely spoken) languages, and some specifics I recall from our conversations about work:
- Sometimes the translations use many technical terms, and getting those wrong (trusting LLMs) is not an option. (This was for some patents IIRC)
- Some terms simply do not exist in another language, and it could be up to the translator to invent a term to define and carry the information across. (This was for some government digital service, and the term was similar to "digital queue")
- Tone and nuances are very difficult to translate. Phrasing can have implications and connotations. (Simplest example: "i am afraid" does not imply fear, it's an established politeness phrase) Neutral in one language could be viewed as hostile in another, too. (And with politicians being petty, could have consequences)
None of those would be addressed with LLMs. Small training set for language (and language being similar to a few others) is an issue. Anything technical or non-existing would be prone to hallucinations. And tone is difficult enough to convey through text to begin with, let alone with LLM translation.
LLM gets 95% of the translation done, but the 5% is likely every important and it takes longer to confirm it's correct than to do it from scratch anyway
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LLM gets 95% of the translation done, but the 5% is likely every important and it takes longer to confirm it's correct than to do it from scratch anyway
How good is LLM training data for a language spoken by less than 10 million people? Keep in mind that most of those people are probably multilingual (i.e. categorizing which language is which by person is harder), and language itself is similar to its neighbors. And then, again, terms.
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Not really our case. We do English->Spanish, where we try to achieve the most neutral Spanish, as there are many local variations. Think truck/lorry, for example.
It's more translating expressions or phrases that don't convey the same concept. For example, "by the way" could be translated to "por el camino" which doesn't usually have the same usage.Exactly, not just literal translation but an aspect of art in conveying the meaning and intent of the writer
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How good is LLM training data for a language spoken by less than 10 million people? Keep in mind that most of those people are probably multilingual (i.e. categorizing which language is which by person is harder), and language itself is similar to its neighbors. And then, again, terms.
I can not say, and wouldn't trust it unless a translator confirmed its validity
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LLM gets 95% of the translation done, but the 5% is likely every important and it takes longer to confirm it's correct than to do it from scratch anyway
I've had to translate a whole bunch of letters from English to Finnish for my grandparents, and doing it using a translator saves a ton of time as I don't have to actually produce the text, I can just read both sides afterwards and as long as every sentence matches in meaning, I can move to the next one.
But I wouldn't trust it to actually be correct for the entire thing, because it never is, and if someone who doesn't understand one of the languages would do it they would never spot the mistakes either.
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The world would be soo easy if there was 1 lang. No more translations no more burning money water electricity
Not to mention the blow to the nationalism.
