| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3] > | Poll: Will machine translation ever replace human translators? Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
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Of course it will, it's just a matter of time. Probably not in the near future, but it makes me chuckle seeing how confident some people are saying "never".
| | | | Nicole Schnell 
United States
Local time: 05:38
English to German
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In memoriam | Maybe it depends on what you consider "translating" | Oct 11, 2011 |
Miroslav Jeftic wrote: Of course it will, it's just a matter of time. Probably not in the near future, but it makes me chuckle seeing how confident some people are saying "never".
A translator is a writer and an author. I yet have to be convinced of any benefits of being replaced by machines. Maybe after we are dead or something.
| | | | Thayenga
Germany
Local time: 14:38
Member (2009)
English to German
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Nicole Schnell wrote: Miroslav Jeftic wrote: Of course it will, it's just a matter of time. Probably not in the near future, but it makes me chuckle seeing how confident some people are saying "never". A translator is a writer and an author. I yet have to be convinced of any benefits of being replaced by machines. Maybe after we are dead or something.
I agree. This is unlikely to occur during our life span. I also believe that this "prospect" also depends on the fields in which one works, since some do require more of a writer, an author than a translator, e. g. finances "vs." literature/poetry.
However, with constantly improving technologies, the possibility of MTs taking the place of human translators cannot be ruled out 100%. After all, it's been less than half a century ago when the translator's "best friend" was the good old typewriter, and computers were reserved for an exclusively few.
| | | | | Machine translation is the future of translation | Oct 11, 2011 |
...and will always be.
As an agency customer of mine quoted.
I voted No, never.
Machines will remain machines. Machines can cut planks, not sculpt "The Kiss" without the template.
Philippe
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zadige
Local time: 15:38
French to Greek
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| Machine translation gives the answer | Oct 11, 2011 |
Will machine translation ever replace human translators
You google translate the above question into Greek and you get:
Θα μηχανική μετάφραση ποτέ να αντικαταστήσει τα ανθρώπινα μεταφραστές
And then you google translate the result back to english and you get:
Machine translation will never replace human translators
| | | | Alex Lago
Spain
Local time: 14:38
English to Spanish
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| Maybe, who knows | Oct 11, 2011 |
Come on let's face it, none of us know, if 40 years ago someone would have told people that they would have access to the internet on their mobile phones and that they would be able to talk to their Apple phone (Apple's Siri for the iPhone 4s, watch the video on this page http://www.apple.com/iphone/features/siri.html ), people would have said what's the Internet and what's a mobile phone a... See more Come on let's face it, none of us know, if 40 years ago someone would have told people that they would have access to the internet on their mobile phones and that they would be able to talk to their Apple phone (Apple's Siri for the iPhone 4s, watch the video on this page http://www.apple.com/iphone/features/siri.html ), people would have said what's the Internet and what's a mobile phone and who's Apple?
Technology is growing exponentially and so is our understanding of the human brain, there are thousands of brain studies with MRIs and other sensors that are expanding our understanding of how the brain works. Look at this fascinating (at least to me) news article and video from UC Berkeley in which they literally read someone's mind and show us what they are seeing (OK its far from 100% accurate but it's still a new technology they will get better at it). http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2011/09/22/brain-movies/
Does this relate directly to translation?, probably not but what I mean to say is that if our technology and our understanding of the brain are both growing at an exponential rate who knows where we will be in a few decades, we will certainly have technologies we can't even dream of today and who knows one of them may be a perfect automated translator. I don't know but neither does anyone else.
Will it happen soon enough to affect me professionally? probably not. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Nicole Schnell
United States
Local time: 05:38
English to German
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In memoriam | Beautiful! :-) | Oct 11, 2011 |
Philippe Etienne wrote:
Machine translation is the future of translation
...and will always be.
As an agency customer of mine quoted.
Machine translation will be the future of translation, just like men will be replaced by in-vitro fertilization and vibrators altogether. Tell your male PMs. There.
| | | | Yaotl Altan
Mexico
Local time: 06:38
Member (2006)
English to Spanish
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CATs are stealing jobs everytime agencies ask for MTs, so translators should receive royalties everytime these MTS are used by agencies.
Day after day, we read job offers related to post-edition. yes! Post-edit what a machine "translated" with a MT created once by a translator.
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Simon Bruni
United Kingdom
Local time: 13:38
Member (2009)
Spanish to English
| If we don't understand the brain we can't make a machine that emulates it | Oct 11, 2011 |
Alex Lago wrote:
Technology is growing exponentially and so is our understanding of the human brain.
I'm not sure I agree. Ask a neurologist how much we know about the brain, and they will tell you that we know virtually nothing, and even less about how it learns and produces language, which seems to draw on many different brain functions.
In his recent documentary on language, Stephen Fry said something along the lines of "We know more about how the universe was made than we do about how the human brain works".
[Edited at 2011-10-11 18:20 GMT]
| | | | | Neverrrrr!!!! | Oct 11, 2011 |
MT systems, come and get me!!
(Please form an orderly queue...)
| | | | | Some human translations will be replaced | Oct 11, 2011 |
But mainly those that are incomprehensible from the hand of the translator - in that case google translate can do an equally good job.
I've noticed that some websites are using google translate to get different language versions of their content. The results can be rather comical. However, as long as it's possible to sue a company for not providing sufficient documentation, the "higher end" translation market will resist.
| | | | m_temmer
Local time: 06:38
English to Dutch
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MT will never be able to replace good translators.
Translators who aren't very good at what they do should however worry. The results of MT will still improve considerably over time and when the quality gap between MT and a mediocre translator is too small, of course, customers/agencies will go for the cheaper MT...
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Interlangue (X)
Angola
Local time: 14:38
English to French
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... even though I do not like to add "never".
There is more to translation than just words and grammar.
A machine cannot think, it has no imagination and cannot guess or figure out what a poor writer may have intended to mean. It does not "feel" either.
Languages change over time and instead of standardising, the evolution tends to get different speakers further and further apart - Canadian French is now quite different from European French, Australian English is not So... See more ... even though I do not like to add "never".
There is more to translation than just words and grammar.
A machine cannot think, it has no imagination and cannot guess or figure out what a poor writer may have intended to mean. It does not "feel" either.
Languages change over time and instead of standardising, the evolution tends to get different speakers further and further apart - Canadian French is now quite different from European French, Australian English is not South African or British or American, and there are differences also between social classes and places in the same country.
As long as the reality of people is different, their language(s) (use and perception) will be different. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Dave Bindon
Greece
Local time: 15:38
Greek to English
In memoriam
zadige wrote:
Will machine translation ever replace human translators
You google translate the above question into Greek and you get:
Θα μηχανική μετάφραση ποτέ να αντικαταστήσει τα ανθρώπινα μεταφραστές
And then you google translate the result back to english and you get:
Machine translation will never replace human translators
The outcome of this English>Greek>English example may be comical, but it masks the fact that the Greek is total nonsense! Worse still, in some ways, is the fact that I still I get the same mis-translation into English when I correct the Greek grammar and syntax.
I can almost imagine a day, long after I've died, when MT will cope with the fact that ποτέ means both 'ever' and 'never' (it doesn't only mean 'never' in a phrase containing a negative particle: it also means 'never' when used alone as a reply to a question). Although MT may take even longer to realise that the negative particle used after the word can still make it mean 'never'.
I can imagine a day when MT will realise that μεταφραστές is a masculine plural (even though the -ες ending is far more common for feminine nouns) and therefore requires an adjective in the mascline pl. (instead of the neuter pl. which it uses now). However, I'm not so sure that MT will cope with the fact that the adjective and the accompanying definite article need to be changed to the masculine plural in the accusative case, even though the noun (in this case) remains unchanged [the accusative of this type of noun is identical to the nominative].
But there are many things that MT can NEVER replace, or at least not until machine intelligence AND FEELING rivals our own. In Greek I can say:
Ο Πέτρος είδε τον Γιάννη.
Τον Γίαννη είδε ο Πέτρος.
Ο Πέτρος τον Γιάννη είδε.
Είδε ο Πέτρος τον Γιάννη.
Τον Γιάννη τον είδε ο Πέτρος.
It all means that Peter saw John. It's more likely that I'll get reincarnated twice and still be in Proz in a thousand years than it is that MT will grasp the subtle differences between the above and understand whether the slight change in nuance is intentional and important to the translation, or simply a matter of the writer using one of the many alternative word-orders available in Greek.
| | | | Rolf Kern
Switzerland
Local time: 14:38
English to German
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In memoriam
Because in my over 30 years of translation practice I have seldom met a text without errors in grammar, logic, word choice, accuracy, misspelling, omissions, redundancy etc. etc. We translators can improve the situation, a machine can only make it worse. And there is practically no translation where I do not have to ask questions to the client or make a suggestion for improvement, whereby the client writes "sorry, you are right". Lately I had a typical case:
Volume 57 pages (manual for a m... See more Because in my over 30 years of translation practice I have seldom met a text without errors in grammar, logic, word choice, accuracy, misspelling, omissions, redundancy etc. etc. We translators can improve the situation, a machine can only make it worse. And there is practically no translation where I do not have to ask questions to the client or make a suggestion for improvement, whereby the client writes "sorry, you are right". Lately I had a typical case:
Volume 57 pages (manual for a machine tool)
Numer of questions or suggestions. 50 (fifty)
Forget the translation machine.
Best regards
Rolf Kern
[Bearbeitet am 2011-10-11 20:52 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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