I think Doctorow's point is dramatically different here. He's talking about a change in medium and specifically arguing against the claims about the original ex

I think Doctorow's point is dramatically different here. He's talking about a change in medium and specifically arguing against the claims about the original experience offered by DRM controlled media (e.g., theatres, ebooks, etc). The article's point is more about while Google Translate has its impressive moments, it needs to be understood for what it is - the most basic translation services. If you've ever had to rely on Google Translate (or any automated translate service) you'll know what I mean by "basic translation services". It's great if you want to say "I want to order Fish and Rice" or "Excuse me, where is the restroom". The moment you try to get past such complexities is where the automated translations just can't get a good grip on human languages. Languages from the same families naturally are a bit easier (English to Spanish, for example usually can allow for more complexities), but you still lose a lot simply because it's a 1:1 translation from the box on the left/top to the box on the right/bottom, which doesn't happen. I'm learning Russian (in Russia no less) and one of the hardest things for me as a native english speaker is avoiding the use of "to be", which is almost never used in Russian. There are other oddities as well regarding prepositions in Russian that are handled differently than English (my poor teacher still can't satisfactorily explain to me why stuff is "on the kitchen", but it's "in the ___" for other rooms) (в гостинной versus на кухне). Now, surprisingly Google translate gets these two right, but other such preposition specialties it bungles completely, and I've had more than my fair share of confused looks when I have to resort to using translate for more complex sentences. Especially when it comes to things like words of motion, for which there are tons of different words depending on how you're going. It's good that it's accessible, but when the reverse happens (russian to english), for me it requires a fairly fast sed operation to fix Google Translate's choices for words or just some additions to help get what the person is wanting. Edit: Addendum to the main point, I can see that there may be applicability in that Translate Tools will allow for pidgin languages to crop up if it receives wide spread usage in real world settings, but I'd be curious to see from a large sample how many people use the conversation style features. I'm sure there's plenty of anecdata on the subject from those who have to use it (myself included), but I wonder if it seems as well used if you increase the sample size out further. Globally, people still pretty much stay at home and/or know enough english to get by.