Navy Unveils Polyglot Chat For Iraq

An anonymous reader writes "According to ScienceBlog, the U.S. Office of Naval Research, trying to keep friendly armies in Iraq from accidentally blowing each other to smithereens, is helping create software that connects instant messaging (IM) with machine translation (MT). The result: Chat software to be used in Iraq that automatically translates your messages into the correct language of the reader, called the the Coalition Chat Line - it's 'getting rave reviews from U.S. and allied-coalition personnel.'"

Comments

Finally!

[Space cowboy]

The US and UK troops will be able to understand each other! Two nations no longer divided by a common language :-)

Simon

Re:Finally!

[SuperBanana]

The US and UK troops will be able to understand each other! Two nations no longer divided by a common language

Joke as you will, but we shot down more British soldiers due to stupid screw ups than were shot by Iraqis. Maybe instead of translators, we should be writing control systems for our automated missile defense systems that don't suck, and putting someone a little more responsible and trained than 18 year old dropouts at the controls. In at least one incident, it was because Patriot missile batteries kept identifying helicopters and planes as inbound missiles. If the operator doesn't stop it after about 10 seconds, the battery fires a missile by itself. Two harriers and at least one helicopter(I believe it had close to 30 British troops on board) were shot down that way. Nobody survived.

It's pretty fucking embarrassing that our troops and their computer systems can't tell the difference between a helicopter and a missile traveling at nearly the speed of sound, and that a system which was routinely proven to have unacceptable friendly-fire targeting problems was deployed so heavily(and when problems surfaced as expected, to meet a threat that didn't exist, the systems were not shut off). As always, technology is being hauled in to solve a problem other technology and sheer incompetence created.

Re:Finally!

[YrWrstNtmr]

someone a little more responsible and trained than 18 year old dropouts at the controls

I know it's hip to denigrate the education levels of the US military, but you couldn't be more wrong.

DoD has established a floor of 90% of recruits have HS diplomas.
The Army and Navy meet that 90%, the Marines at 95%, and the Air Force at 99%.
The military takes in very, very few Tier II (GED) or Tier III (non GED or non diploma) recruits. And those people must score at least in the top 1/2 (Army & Navy) or top 1/3 (USAF) on the ASVAB entrance exam.

And the typical 18 year old (brand new E-1 or E-2) is not at the controls of that thing by himself, if at all.

Two harriers and at least one helicopter

Got any further info on that? Because no, there was no British helo shot down in OIF by a Patriot.

March 23 - Tornado
April 2 - Possible F-18 Hornet
Patriot destroyed by F-16 after it locked on to the Viper

Machine translation?

[robslimo]

Given the quirks of babelfish and similar, I hope poor, mangled machine translations don't cause more negative incidents than they prevent.

Re:Machine translation?

[Seehund]

The Mil Spec version of this story, courtesy of Babelfish:

An anonymous reader writes "in accordance with of ScienceBlog, the office of the research of the blue marine and the tests, of the roast meat in the United States the friendly armies in Iraq of the disturbance that to maintain those cause smithereens, to the application software locally those the communication (IM) immediately with a machine translation (M.Ue.), to attention. The result: One automatically translates of Plaudern in Iraq the software, those his publicity in the correct language of the reader, the city of Koalition-Schwaetzchen-Linie - ' it receives from Raveberichte of the United States and the coalition of the alliance of the personnel '

Mmmmmmm.... Roast meat!

Re:Machine translation?

[k98sven]

American soldier: "Can you provide support? We're in a bit of a jam here"

Polish soldier 1: "What is he writing?"

Polish soldier 2: "He asks if we can prop him up, they are covered with a piece of marmelade"

Re:Machine translation?

[cybermace5]

I'm pretty sure that Babelfish is just a toy compared to the stuff you pay for.

However, I'd be impressed by the developers if they resisted the temptation to throw in "easter eggs" at one-in-a-million intervals. "please designate 8 of your troops for west bunker guard tonight" --> "your mother is as ugly as five camels and weighs more"

Language technology...

[James A. J. Joyce]

...is better than you may think. Though it is as difficult as everyone says to translate a random text from one language to another, translating short texts in a specialised domain between well-linked languages isn't too hard. Heck, they might even be able to get away with using lookup tables.

chat you say?

[plams]

ArmyGuy26: a/s/l? ^_^
GunD00de: 28/m/over here!
ArmyGuy26: LOL! almost blew ur head off!

This is why the Iraqi citizens dislike Americans

[cmburns69]

What we say: "We want to help you."

What they hear: "All your base are belong to us!".

Maybe now...

[CamSauce]

Maybe now the guy that works at the pizza place can finally understand my order. When does the public get this software?

The correct language...

[Faust7]

Chat software to be used in Iraq that automatically translates your messages into the correct language of the reader, called the the Coalition Chat Line

Iraq doubleplusgood / Iraqpersons secure / foodwater supplies up 82% / Kerry verging crimethink / oldthinkers unbellyfeel Bush / think in Bushspeak.

what?

[visionsofmcskill]

BEGIN TRANSMISSION

US: our base is protected

translate

UK : Your Base is under control

translate

Pol : Your Base Is Inside our control

translate

Jap: All Your Base Are Belong To Us

translate

Iraq : Well No Sh!t sherlock.

END TRANSMISSION

Re:Microsoft patent???

[javatips]

Here I found the link to the slashdot story.

Just teach everybody the Aggressor Language.

[lifebouy]

Hey, like it or hate it, Esperanto can be taught in just a month or two, to a level allowing excellent communications. I think its great to have such software, but that doesn't help face to face, whereas everyone learning a neutral language will help in every situation. So if we are going to pour money down a funnel, lets pour it down the funnel that has long-term benifits for mankind.

Re:Just teach everybody the Aggressor Language.

[forand]

How can you think Esperanto is a neutral language?! It is compose solely of romanctic languages! I just watched Incubus(the only movie made in Esperanto and it has William Shattner) and you can pretty much undestand it if you know english and some french/italian/spanish(choose one) now for someone who doesn't speak a romantic language learning this is not going to be easy. Also forcing a culture to learn your language is not the way to make friends.

Re:Just teach everybody the Aggressor Language.

[Zathrus]

Esperanto can be taught in just a month or two

Really? To anyone? I suspect that non-Western language speakers, like virtually anyone in Asia, might disagree. As well as those with rather esoteric languages like Hungarian.

And as for those who speak languages that are similar to Esperanto (namely any Germanic or Romantic derived language) could learn any given langugage "in just a month or two, to a level allowing excellent communications".

doesn't help face to face

Which is why we have personal translators for that situation, which do exist and do work. You can even get them for civilian use.

Esperanto was dead before it was even born. It doesn't evolve with any civilization and so lacks terminology that comes into usage over time. And, heck, if we want to pick a popular "neutral" language, then Klingon beats Esperanto for number of speakers. Yes. It is that silly.

Ah, English

[Faust7]

Two nations no longer divided by a common language

Indeed. I can't tell you how many fights erupt when a Brit asks a Yank for a cigarette.

Re:Ah, English

[Anonymous Coward]

It's worse when a Brit offers a ciggarette.

"Fancy a fag, mate?"

Re:Ah, English

[dr_dank]

Clerks: The Animated series covered this perfectly.

Brit: Pack of fags?
Randall: You're a fag.
Brit: It's a cigarette, mate.
Randall: I'm not your mate, fag!

Yikes!

[pubjames]

The article starts with a question:

So how do you get soldiers and commanders speaking different languages in a theater of war to communicate effectively and not, for example, blow each other up mistakenly?

I think there is a simple answer to that question - use human translators! I would never trust a machine translation with my life.

I speak a second language to reasonably high standard, and so I realise that languages can be really subtle things. Sometimes things just don't translate directly, and they need interpretation e.g.

Non-English speaking soldier How's the new weapon system working?

US soldier It's hot! Damn hot!

Non-English speaking soldier Oh dear! It shouldn't be hot! You must stop using it immediately!

US soldier No I mean it rocks!

Non-English speaking soldier It's fastenings are insecure? Sounds like we should send an engineer immediately! Please cease using it!

Re:Yikes!

[pubjames]

Solution: A sticker across the top of the device in all appropriate languages: "AVOID USE OF SLANG". Well, that's a partial solution. You also have to not hand it to an idiot.

But the problem isn't just slang.

I have taught languages, and one of the things that you realise is that people that don't speak a second language actually have a hard time analysing languages and realising what is colloquial, for instance, or when a sentence is simple for a foreign language speaker and when it isn't.

So many English speakers will think a sentence like "we've been set up" is very simple, because it uses little words, whereas many who have English as a second language would find it difficult to understand. ("Set up" is a phrasal verb, the "up" completely changes the meaning of the verb "set").

You can do this, too

[bmetz]

Sametime (IBM's instant messaging product for the enterprise) has had this for some time:

http://jkent.dfw.ibm.com/ebia/doc/LTSS.html

Irony at it's finest...

[b0z0mind]

...since Iraq was originaly the Babylonian empire :-)

Overheard

[bgeer]

Iraqi: I will not buy this record, it is scratched.
Soldier: Sorry?
Iraqi I will not buy this record, it is scratched.
Soldier: Uh, no, no, no. This is a patrol.
Iraqi: Ah! I will not buy this *patrol*, it is scratched.
Soldier: No, no, no, no. Patrol...um...military (holds up his rifle).
Iraqi: Ya! Mil-teh-ree! Ya! Uh...My hovercraft is full of eels.
Soldier: Sorry?
Iraqi: My hovercraft (pantomimes hefting a rifle)...is full of eels
Soldier: Ahh, insurgents!
Iraqi: Ya! Ya! Ya! Ya! Do you waaaaant...do you waaaaaant...to come back to my place, bouncy bouncy?
Soldier: Here, I don't think you're using that thing right.
Iraqi: You great poof.
Soldier: Look, just move along please.
Iraqi: If I said you had a beautiful body, would you hold it against me? I...I am no longer infected.
Soldier: Uh, may I, uh...(takes notebook computer, types in a phrase)...Costs six and six...ah, here we are. (speaks weird Iraqi-sounding words)
Iraqi punches the soldier.

Canadian Peacekeepers

[DR SoB]

Well, since in the last 10 years only 4 Canadians have died as a result of direct military combat, all 4 of them the result of US Friendly fire, will it translate Canadian to American as well? Oh wait, I guess we all speak English.. So much for that..

A reminder for our military in chat rooms...

[voss]

Never flame the guy with the flamethrower ;)