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Computer Translator Ready for Testing in Iraq
cgibby98 wrote to mention a Wired News story about a battle-zone translation technology that may allow near real-time conversations between English and Arabic speakers. From the article: "Funded by Darpa, the system would allow troops to communicate in Arabic through a laptop computer equipped with voice recognition and translation software. Troops could speak in English and have their words instantly translated into Iraqi Arabic, 'spoken' by a computerized man's voice. The program also translates Arabic into English. Will it replace the need for an interpreter when you're having some sort of high-level conversation? Absolutely not. But it is absolutely to the point where it could be useful in some carefully chosen situations."
But it is absolutely to the point where it could be useful in some carefully chosen situations.
Seems like you could say that for any new, generally unproven, technique
...especially to people who grew up watching star trek. Really though it's most important because the technology can eventually eliminate the need for trade languages, which can eventually erode the use of local, cultural language. Since we [predominantly] think in language, people who speak different languages think differently and that is valuable. At the same time, it will probably never eliminate the need for fluent human translators, because sentience appears to be a necessary quality for the best command of language.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Good God it must be depressing for you to watch a happy people embrace democracy
Fuck it
But it is absolutely to the point where it could be useful in some carefully chosen situations."
... So much for the diplomacy and professionalism the US officer was trying to convey.
I think it is far more useful than many people realize given that many people have too much faith in human translators. I was watching a discovery channel episode of "Off to War" and a US officer had his men hold their fire when they saw armed insurgents because they were not sure where the Iraqi police attached to the unit were. Afterwards the US officer tells the translator to tell the police that he had to hold his fire because he did not know where they were and that they must let him know when they leave the group. Subtitles show that the translator really says something like: You idiots! You completely screwed up the mission
I ask whether a machine without a conscience is a suitable replacement for a human translator, in an extremely important current situation where precisely that conscience is necessary. Then I get TrollMod'ed:
Moderation -2
50% Troll
50% Flamebait
We need to talk about the consequences of automating humans out of extremely important human transactions. The TrollMods who fear that American torture revealed will hurt their favorite torturers are already robots, so eliminating them from the transactions will only improve them. If you were still human, you should be ashamed of your diligence in torturing actual humans, and defending the machines.
--
make install -not war
Look, I'm not trying to sound negative here, but unless this conflict draws really really long, I don't really believe these devices will ever hit the streets of Baghdad. All the talk about the possible use of this technology in Iraq serves only to justify all the millions being spent on these machine translation projects.
Man is a slave because freedom is difficult, whereas slavery is easy.
...I totally agree - once it works.
I went to school in a military college in Quebec. One of its aims was to make us fluently bilingual (French and English) and a lot of effort was spent on that. All communications outside the classroom switched language every two weeks, we got 5 classes of instruction per week, and we spent two months one summer on a full-bore language training programme.
And after 4 years of this, I was indeed fluently bilingual. (Je suis billingue)
BUT - it took 4 years of constant immersion to get there, French and English are reasonably similar (same alphabet, mostly the same sounds, a lot of shared words, reasonably similar grammar) and I still can't do a very good job of translating. In fact, I didn't really start to be able to function in French until I was comfortable enough with it to THINK in French (pense en francias). If I think in French, I'm fine. If I have to think in english and then speak in French (or vice versa) there's a kind of mental clashing of gears; it's like the speech centre and the comprehension centre are in one place, and the translation centre is in another.
So I can watch a French movie, no problem. But ask me to provide a running translation of the dialogue in English, and I can't do it - not without falling way behind. Translation is HARD.
Plus, from personal experiance, trying to communicate with somebody when you share very little language is very, very frustrating - for both of you - even in the most benign circmstances. It's a stressor. Now try it when one or both participants in the conversation are in fear for their lives... it's an easy way for tempers and emotions to get stoked way high.
And that's with French, which was relatively easy. Arabic reads right-to-left, has no shared alphabet with romantic languages, shares few sounds, and has a completely different grammar. I can't imagine how long it would take to be able to speak fluent Farsi or Pashtun - but yet, some day, my life might depend on it.
If we can develop a working real-time translator, it's going to make a lot of people's lives a lot easier. It will be a de-escalator when it comes to conflict resolution - and by far the best way to resolve conflicts is peacefully. Ask any soldier.
DG
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of course, you, being one who looks through the world in shit-tinted glasses, fails to see situations where that same "sterile" translation can prove a good double check against translators who may have ulterior motives. This can be a very, very useful double check, or a useful in hot situations where there are no nearby translators. Would you rather have people shooting it out, or maybe trying to establish some degree of communication?
Marxism is the opiate of dumbasses
Except that there are situations in which a machine translation might give you exactly the opposite tranlation of what is intended by the speaker. Or something meaningless. Try to translate "That's so bad!" from English to Dutch and back again in Babelfish. What do you get? "That's so prayed!"
Translation is an AI problem. It isn't going to be solved that easily.
Body language plays a clear part in these sorts of situations. The Iraqis aren't stupid- they see the US officer saying something carefully and quietly and calmly...and then the translator starts waving his arms around and calling them idiots, I think they have a pretty good idea that the translator is full of shit, or at least that the US officer isn't the one being rude.
Let's put it this way- if the US officer came over and started yelling and waving his arms around, and the translator says "The general wishes to express his slight displeasure with how the operation went, but asks that you honor him by coming to dinner"...do you really think they're not going to realize the translator is fluffing things?
I strongly suspect the translator was taking the cushy-nice-guy talk which would earn the soldier zero respect, and -fully- translating it into something the Iraqi police would expect. It's like the difference between a project meeting to decide how to fix the mail server, versus a construction site. Your boss doesn't say, "hey ya stupid moron, ya dropped that SCSI disk and now we're gonna be 3 days behind! Get yer ass into the server room and if you don't have 20 machines racked by the end of the day, don't show up tomorra!", and a construction supervisor doesn't say, "Hey Charlie, how's it going? Your kid feeling better? Yeah, about backing up the cement mixer into the side of the building. Well, next time, please be a little more careful and maybe solicit Bob's help next time in making sure there's adequate clearance."
Please help metamoderate.
Bullshit. You clearly know absolutely nothing about the subject and are pulling crap out of your ass. They already do offer bonuses to qualified recruits based on their ability to speak foreign languages. And do you really think they're not cranking out arabic linguists as fast as they can? It takes 9 months to a year to train a non-arabic speaker to speak well enough to just barely get by. It then usually takes an additional year of real-life exposure before they truly become proficient. Furthermore, the language program only takes those who score in the top 5% on their aptitude tests, and of those they do accept, fully half still wash out. You may think it's just a matter of teaching all the infantry grunts a half dozen canned phrases, but making a usable translator out of someone is a hell of a lot harder than teaching them to shoot a machine gun. This all I know, being a former soldier with the 101st Airborne (311th MI bn, "Eyes of the Eagle") and a graduate myself of the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
There are 22 Arab countries in the Arab League. Not a single dialect is similar to the other. And nobody speaks the classical Arabic taught at schools!