Eugen RochkoMachine translations are often brought up as a gotcha whenever I criticize LLMs. It's worth pointing out two things: Machine translations existed decades before LLMs, and yes, machine translations are useful. However: I would never in my life read a machine translated book. Understanding what a social media post is talking about in rough terms? Sure. Literature? Absolutely not. Hell, have you ever seen machine translated subtitles? It's absolute garbage.
I have the impression that primarily anglophone people don't read as much translated literature, because so much good literature already exists in their language, so this issue may not be as familiar within that demographic. As someone who did not grow up anglophone, I can tell you there is a world of difference between a good and a bad translation even when done by humans. Machine translations are not even on the scale.
From what I've observed, people who claim that LLMs can replace artists don't understand art, people who claim that they can replace musicians don't understand music, people who claim that they can replace writers don't understand literature, and people who claim they can replace translators don't rely on translations. If I had a button that would erase LLMs from the world but it would take machine translations away (which is a false dichotomy anyway), I would absolutely still press it.
Technology is not inevitable. We've decided not to have asbestos in our walls, lead in our pipes, or carginogenic chemicals in our food. (If you're going to argue that it's not everywhere, where would you rather live?) We could just not do LLMs. It's allowed.
Sarcasm is all I have Left@Gargron You sound like me arguing against the inevitability of mass use of the cell phone.
I never understood why we gave up crystal clear audio, a two way simultaneous connection (yes, both parties could talk at the same time and hear wha5 the other had to say), and phone books for unintelligible garbled speak, dropped calls, delays, and no way to look up the damn phone number.
LisPi@HappytoBe @Gargron You had crystal clear audio on your landlines?
We never had that (I'm vaguely jealous, it was memorably trash). Even early cellphones were very comparable (current ones are much better, the most early ones I never got exposed to, too expensive).
and no way to look up the damn phone number.
I'm not sure if the harassment potential is why no one was interested in reimplementing it or if it was some manner of walled garden plans.