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You are a founder of a startup. A notable VC wants to invest millions of dollars but insists that the contract will be in their language which is Finnish. Would

You are a founder of a startup. A notable VC wants to invest millions of dollars but insists that the contract will be in their language which is Finnish. Would you trust GPT to translate the contract or reach out to a professional human translator? We've got Google translate from 2006, and there are still millions of translators at work all around the world. I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss those jobs.

parker_mountain 4y ago
I don't think it's so simple. A few counter-notes - Google translate and its ilk have already significantly cut down the number of translators required for multinational companies. Google translate in 2006 is also a bad example, it really only got excellent in the past few years. - I would trust GPT to write the first draft, and then hire a translator to check it. That goes from many billable hours to one, or two. That is a material loss of work for said translator. - High profile translations, as your example is, are a sharp minority of existing translator jobs.
- mr_toad 4y ago
  Or there will be a lot more translations produced, because they are so cheap, and human translators will have more work checking them all.
q845712 4y ago
I was just using bing translate last night, and it was literally making up english words that do not exist - I tried to google for them to see if it was just some archaic word, and it was complete fabrication. So I dunno how many years are left before we all trust machine translation unflinchingly, but I agree today's not the day.
- hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
  Try it on GPT-4, not Google or Bing Translate: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35180715 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35180715
- veqq 4y ago
  Which words?
hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
I think you are vastly underestimating how Google Translate, Bing Translate and others compare to GPT-4: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35180715 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35180715
throwaway675309 4y ago
Tools like deepL and Google translate have absolutely put casual translators and part-time translators out of a job. GPT and tools like whisper that can do automatic speech recognition and instant translation will make that even worse. There will always be a need for careful human translation work in such things as legal documents for government work but those positions will become even more competitive.
robben1234 4y ago
Here's an anecdote for you: Recently I needed a couple payslips translated from German to English and then certified. Google Translate can translate, but cannot certify. Professional licensed translator took significant amount of money and sent me a document for review with most numbers somehow mixed up. It took days of back and forth over the email for them to fix it.
- mistrial9 4y ago
  ok - but a translator with certification is available to replace the one that made a mistake. Their guild exists.. The recourse and legal weight of the Google Translate service are very different. You can't compare the two fully without context.

parker_mountain 4y ago

I don't think it's so simple. A few counter-notes - Google translate and its ilk have already significantly cut down the number of translators required for multinational companies. Google translate in 2006 is also a bad example, it really only got excellent in the past few years. - I would trust GPT to write the first draft, and then hire a translator to check it. That goes from many billable hours to one, or two. That is a material loss of work for said translator. - High profile translations, as your example is, are a sharp minority of existing translator jobs.

mr_toad 4y ago
Or there will be a lot more translations produced, because they are so cheap, and human translators will have more work checking them all.

q845712 4y ago

I was just using bing translate last night, and it was literally making up english words that do not exist - I tried to google for them to see if it was just some archaic word, and it was complete fabrication. So I dunno how many years are left before we all trust machine translation unflinchingly, but I agree today's not the day.

hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
Try it on GPT-4, not Google or Bing Translate: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35180715 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35180715
veqq 4y ago
Which words?

hn_throwaway_99 4y ago

I think you are vastly underestimating how Google Translate, Bing Translate and others compare to GPT-4: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35180715 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35180715

throwaway675309 4y ago

Tools like deepL and Google translate have absolutely put casual translators and part-time translators out of a job. GPT and tools like whisper that can do automatic speech recognition and instant translation will make that even worse. There will always be a need for careful human translation work in such things as legal documents for government work but those positions will become even more competitive.

robben1234 4y ago

Here's an anecdote for you: Recently I needed a couple payslips translated from German to English and then certified. Google Translate can translate, but cannot certify. Professional licensed translator took significant amount of money and sent me a document for review with most numbers somehow mixed up. It took days of back and forth over the email for them to fix it.

mistrial9 4y ago
ok - but a translator with certification is available to replace the one that made a mistake. Their guild exists.. The recourse and legal weight of the Google Translate service are very different. You can't compare the two fully without context.