9 ms·

Machine Translation Shifts Power

36 points by atg_abhishek 5y ago

yosito 5y ago
I wonder if there is a machine that can translate this article from the language of political ideology into the language of rational thought. Unfortunately, as far as I know, machine translation is still subject to the law of garbage in, garbage out, so probably the only way to understand this article is to immerse yourself in the ideology.
- grumblenum 5y ago
  Comments like this are why I read HN before the left coast wakes up. As for the article, it reads like teenage-angst Marxism.
- robbedpeter 5y ago
  That sounds like a worthy use for gpt, lol.
villgax 5y ago
This is actual manifestation of what you say online coming back to haunt you when you travel to the USA or countries using the same tech as the USA. You better pray that the topic modelling doesn't put words out of context & flag you. Wondering how would they even tie things back to a user, you'd need either access to the phone or their ISP to verify anything.
torcete 5y ago
I wonder why the NSA is not providing the translation services instead of Google. I would assume they are more than capable of doing it.
- enriquto 5y ago
  how do you know it's not the case already?
- grumblenum 5y ago
  Is there even a clear line where intelligence agencies end and Google begins? Google was an In-Q-Tel baby, after all.
- GuB-42 5y ago
  My guess is that they are not, or at least, not in a way that would make economic sense. The NSA doesn't have superpowers. They have a lot of competent people, paid to work on topics that are are important to state security, but I think they are lagging behind on topics with profitable commercial applications. And machine translation is one of these. The reason I think that is that working for a three letter agency comes with a burden of secrecy, and obviously, people tend not to work as efficiently if they are not allowed to talk to each others. These institutions are also plagued with pork-barrel economics, and secrecy is also a good way to hide incompetence. So if a private company can do it, it is better to let them do.
roca 5y ago
I don't know why Christian missionaries are slammed for creating "the first grammar resources for previously unwritten languages". Yes, missionaries have done a lot of the hard work of developing orthographies for minority languages. A language you can't read and write is much less useful than a language you can, so developing orthography is an essential step toward preserving these languages --- and the associated culture. And literacy is very valuable, so teaching people to read and write their native language benefits them immensely.
- MikeUt 5y ago
  It's even more amazing how she associates the evil of translating the Bible into native languages, with punishments for speaking native languages: Some of the first grammar resources for previously unwritten languages were created by Christian missionaries in order to translate the Bible and proselytize to indigenous peoples worldwide. History is rife with examples of colonial subjects who were forced to learn the languages of their colonizers, often facing punishment for speaking in their native languages. Surely any reasonable person would see that translating books into a language promotes, not suppresses, that language. Yet she links one to the other without missing a beat.
  - 908B64B197 5y ago
    > Yet she links one to the other without missing a beat. That's because the article's conclusion was written first, then filling had to be added to reach the pre-agreed conclusion.
- nickvincent 5y ago
  I didn't read this as "slamming" missionaries so much as asking people to reconsider the framing of language-related actions under the frame of power. That is -- many people do see what Christian missionaries did as a uncomplicated social good, for reasons you laid out, but we should also consider outcomes like the decline of a language, and most importantly the role of power/consent. I thought the missionary example made for compelling comparison w/ modern day NLP work.
jrm4 5y ago
Perhaps I've missed it, but it feels like this principle is woefully underused, as in, "not just translation." Any task "offloaded to the machine" will always carry some level of power-shifting that is frequently under-noticed, and I'm surprised I haven't seen this concept expressed in a more general way?
pjc50 5y ago
I see we're back to "US nationals can post whatever they like under any circumstances, but foreigners, even resident ones, will be subject to having a badly machine-translated version of their social media posts considered at the border by a political officer who can forever ban them from the country".

36 points by atg_abhishek 5y ago

I wonder if there is a machine that can translate this article from the language of political ideology into the language of rational thought. Unfortunately, as far as I know, machine translation is still subject to the law of garbage in, garbage out, so probably the only way to understand this article is to immerse yourself in the ideology.

grumblenum 5y ago
Comments like this are why I read HN before the left coast wakes up. As for the article, it reads like teenage-angst Marxism.
robbedpeter 5y ago
That sounds like a worthy use for gpt, lol.

villgax 5y ago

This is actual manifestation of what you say online coming back to haunt you when you travel to the USA or countries using the same tech as the USA. You better pray that the topic modelling doesn't put words out of context & flag you. Wondering how would they even tie things back to a user, you'd need either access to the phone or their ISP to verify anything.

torcete 5y ago

I wonder why the NSA is not providing the translation services instead of Google. I would assume they are more than capable of doing it.

enriquto 5y ago
how do you know it's not the case already?
grumblenum 5y ago
Is there even a clear line where intelligence agencies end and Google begins? Google was an In-Q-Tel baby, after all.
GuB-42 5y ago
My guess is that they are not, or at least, not in a way that would make economic sense. The NSA doesn't have superpowers. They have a lot of competent people, paid to work on topics that are are important to state security, but I think they are lagging behind on topics with profitable commercial applications. And machine translation is one of these. The reason I think that is that working for a three letter agency comes with a burden of secrecy, and obviously, people tend not to work as efficiently if they are not allowed to talk to each others. These institutions are also plagued with pork-barrel economics, and secrecy is also a good way to hide incompetence. So if a private company can do it, it is better to let them do.

roca 5y ago

I don't know why Christian missionaries are slammed for creating "the first grammar resources for previously unwritten languages". Yes, missionaries have done a lot of the hard work of developing orthographies for minority languages. A language you can't read and write is much less useful than a language you can, so developing orthography is an essential step toward preserving these languages --- and the associated culture. And literacy is very valuable, so teaching people to read and write their native language benefits them immensely.

MikeUt 5y ago
It's even more amazing how she associates the evil of translating the Bible into native languages, with punishments for speaking native languages: Some of the first grammar resources for previously unwritten languages were created by Christian missionaries in order to translate the Bible and proselytize to indigenous peoples worldwide. History is rife with examples of colonial subjects who were forced to learn the languages of their colonizers, often facing punishment for speaking in their native languages. Surely any reasonable person would see that translating books into a language promotes, not suppresses, that language. Yet she links one to the other without missing a beat.
- 908B64B197 5y ago
  > Yet she links one to the other without missing a beat. That's because the article's conclusion was written first, then filling had to be added to reach the pre-agreed conclusion.
nickvincent 5y ago
I didn't read this as "slamming" missionaries so much as asking people to reconsider the framing of language-related actions under the frame of power. That is -- many people do see what Christian missionaries did as a uncomplicated social good, for reasons you laid out, but we should also consider outcomes like the decline of a language, and most importantly the role of power/consent. I thought the missionary example made for compelling comparison w/ modern day NLP work.

jrm4 5y ago

Perhaps I've missed it, but it feels like this principle is woefully underused, as in, "not just translation." Any task "offloaded to the machine" will always carry some level of power-shifting that is frequently under-noticed, and I'm surprised I haven't seen this concept expressed in a more general way?

pjc50 5y ago

I see we're back to "US nationals can post whatever they like under any circumstances, but foreigners, even resident ones, will be subject to having a badly machine-translated version of their social media posts considered at the border by a political officer who can forever ban them from the country".