Charlie StrossWhy LLMs can't handle everyday social etiquette in Persian:
Reading between the lines, this is a really good caution for any diplomats who are thinking of firing their interpreters and replacing them with "AI".
redsakana@cstross To be fair I think "AI translation is fine" is largely an extension of the "English gets you by everywhere because globalization" pathology pushed by European governments and businesses for cost-saving and/or neoliberal-ideology reasons for several decades.
A friend works for an export-promotion agency that helps European companies establish a presence in East Asian countries, and has had quite a few stories to tell about SMEs losing their shirts going in on their own with that attitude, even in the supposedly-highly-law-abiding democracies.
There's a cottage industry of dudes whose only skill is to speak fluent English with American sports idioms that the CEO class loves. They wine and dine idiot managers coming over who have no idea about local language/markets/customs, throw in sports talk to convince them that they are huge players in local business networks and getting the furriner's products to market is going to be a slam dunk, feed glowing fake reports to string along the current victim, and then use the consulting fees to acquire new marks.
UkeleleEric@redsakana @cstross anyone with any sense of decorum or even practical knowledge must surely see that having at least one person on staff able to speak, or, at the very least, read/write in the target country's language, is bound to reduce trade friction and misunderstandings, if nothing else. Even as a tourist, I have always tried to at least say a few words in their language - it is only courteous.