[object Object]May 27

I’m glad people are finally noticing LLM translators will just make plausible sentences the fuck up when they’re fed anything but a perfect source to translate, which makes them exhausting and damaging for language learning and a variety of other situations where you’re expected to actually, you know, use the fucking language for anything but a highly inaccurate skim

thank fuck all the language learning companies didn’t jump onto the LLM train, right?

…right?

Show threadsotolfMay 27
@zzt I have complained about machine translation for about a decade by now, usually what I meet is "What am I supposed to do? Learn the language?" yeah, just like I learned english to be able to communicate with people who don't bother.
Show thread[object Object]May 27
@sotolf right! and for my purposes (learning the damn language with my human brain) the LLM translations are worse for me, because it’s very obvious when an old school translator fucks up and I can sometimes figure out how it got there and retranslate by hand, but the LLM will just extrude its fuckups into unrelated text
Show threadsotolfMay 27
@zzt Yeah, I can think that's annoying yeah, I speak 3 languages daily, and some times I just need a nudge for a word, so I pop a sentence into one of the online translators, and even then when i use rather clear example sentences at times the result is really weird.
Show threadsotolfMay 27
@zzt The worst thing though is things like applications or games or something where the developer think that machine translation is "good enough" so they just pulled it through without caring at all, I have had to reset the language of my phone from norwegian to english, and every other program set it to english, because the text bits in program are so bad I can't even puzzle out what they were supposed to mean. It's annoying.
Show threadRandulo.com (Randy)May 27
@sotolf @zzt sotolf, this was a huge thing in the early web in France when people would ask their 16 year old niece who knew a little English to translate the site. That would be obvious on the home page that read, "Welcome in our web site". AI is like your 16 year old niece who knows a little English!
Show threadsotolfMay 27
@randulo @zzt Just that your 16 year old niece is less likely to objectively lie to you, and if they don't understand something completely you can look it up together :)
Show threadRandulo.com (Randy)May 27
@sotolf @zzt But similar that, unless she's paid and taken seriously, she'll do the best she can and not mention if she's not sure. AI would be cool if answers began, "I don't know for sure, but I think..."
Show threadsotolfMay 27

@randulo @zzt

No, I don't think AI would be cool then, there are still so many issues that isn't helped by the averageing out-o-meter, I'd much rather read something where I see someone tried, broken norwegian that I can puzzle out because I see what the person tried to do I'm okay with puzzling out and some times help someone get better if they want to, but someone just putting something into the "good enough for me" box and just leaving me hanging don't deserve to get any cookies for trying, I'd much rather have to puzzle out the meaning of a french sentence, and believe me I utterly suck at french than having to read it machine translated, at least if there is something wrong in how I did it it's a learning moment, and I can get better at something, even though it's not something I was really prepared to get better at that day.

Of course the anglos aren't really going to care, because they are never going to have to use the result, don't have to suffer from not having the neuances there, aren't going to notice the context that is going missing. There are whole conversations that I have had that I've put to a translator for fun and 70% of what is going through it makes no sense any more, and that's not something that is going to be solved by "I'm not sure but" almost all LLM chatbots has the "Always check the result, never use the result without verifying" thing under it, and we all know how much people pay attention to that.

Show threadRandulo.com (Randy)May 27
@sotolf @zzt
Even though I have lived here for over four decades and have a pretty high level of the language, I still need a boost from time to time. Nowadays, I just type what I want in the address bar and whetever AI the search is using will provide the answer. Actually I sometimes need to do it in Englisn too, as I sometimes forget correct spellings. I am not ok with shoving AI everywhere and in everything, but I find some of it useful in day to day trivial tasks that don't reveal much.
Show threadsotolfMay 27

@randulo @zzt

Sorry, but I'm unable to parse this sentence:

I am not ok with shoving AI everywhere and in everything, but I find some of it useful in day to day trivial tasks that don't reveal much.

Show threadRandulo.com (Randy)May 27

@sotolf @zzt Is your niece available?

I'm saying I don't hate AI itself, just the fact that we are fed it very much like geese are fed to make foie gras. I think the result is similar, too.

And that I use it for some simple tasks that do not reveal bodily illness or existential issues.

Show threadsotolfMay 27

@randulo @zzt

Sorry, she's only 2 and bearly speaks norwegian :p

So you have no issue with the plagiarism, the excessive resource use, piracy or anything? I don't want even less effort spent on things that actually matter to me, like my native tongue, which are spoken by probably fewer people that live in Paris, and it's still one of the less endangered langauges around. Personally I don't think outsourcing thinking ever was a good idea, so much context and unsaid knowledge that people "just know" are getting lost for something that is not really worth consuming in any way.

Show threadRandulo.com (Randy)May 27

@sotolf @zzt Without entering into a long back and forth, I don't think asking how to say a word in French uses a whole city's water, replaces anyone's job, or plagarizes.

As we were discussing translation, I was thinking about it today. We worked with specialized translators in our business a few years ago. Translators mostly will NOT be replaced by AI, as it will never be good enough for serious translation, i.e., perfectly conveying human thoughts.

Show threadsotolfMay 27

@randulo @zzt

If you're not up to a back and forth, I will give you a tip to something I've used for so long, that's really good and quick, and cost next to no resources, it's called "a dictionary" and it's magical, it has so many cool words in there, often with an etymology and pronounciation guide and everything :)

Show threadxrvsMay 27
@sotolf @randulo @zzt depends on the language tho. for chinese, for example, i wouldn’t know how to look a word up unless i already know how it’s written
Show threadsotolf

@xarvos @randulo @zzt

For my japanese learning at the university, I used hiragana, stroke-count, or hand writing recognition to find stuff, I also had a really cool electronic dictionary that was driven by two AAA batteries, I would guess that would be similar in chinese, just that they use pinyin and stuff for lookup.

May 27 at 3:30pmWeb
Show threadxrvsMay 27
@sotolf @randulo @zzt you learned japanese so i guess you also know there are a bunch of characters that sound the same but mean entirely different things. and you can’t rule out from the context unless you already know the language. so, it’s useful for people already know the language looking up a few new words, but not if you’re a beginner and need to look up almost every word
Show threadsotolfMay 27

@xarvos @randulo @zzt Yeah, no, but our teachers were really clever and taught us some nice tricks, like how to ask for a simpler explanation if we don't understand or something like it, if it's spoken you can always ask the person to write down the kanji/hanzi, and then it's usually easier to guess, or look up, in a conversation I would mostly not bother with a dictionary, and guess from context unless it was a load bearing word for the sentence, as with so much of language learning, it's daring to show that you don't understand, daring to be silly or stupid, and just asking helps so much. Even now, having spoken german almost daily for a decade now there are times that I ask a coworker "how do you say (simple stupid explanation of something)" and mostly people are very helpful if they see you make an effort.

If it's written down it's usually quite quick to look up, and if it is something I want to say, and there are homonyms that I can't really keep apart I will use a 2 language dictionary to make sure it's the one I want. Sure it's more work, but at least personally when I put some work in it it sticks in my mind a lot better than if I just get it handed to me.