4 ms·

I don't get why people are so optimistic about machine translation. Computers can get explicit meaning across – that's obvious to anyone who understands linear

I don't get why people are so optimistic about machine translation. Computers can get explicit meaning across – that's obvious to anyone who understands linear algebra, information theory, and linguistics. But many aspects of translation (puns, tone, cultural context) aren't just about mapping from one vector space to another. A human, no matter how fluently bilingual, would have to think about the problem, and the current systems don't think. If we keep working on them, these systems will likely get better and better at low-level translation (including translating idioms), but no machine translation system currently in existence could translate the 逆転裁判 games to Ace Attorney games. Perhaps computers can do it – I don't see a theoretical reason they shouldn't be able to – but it would take a fundamentally different approach.

famouswaffles 4y ago
Have you actually used GPT-4 for translation? Seriously all this talk about only getting explicit meaning across would be easily dispelled in an afternoon if you only bothered to try.
- qorrect 4y ago
  Agreed. A lot of these responses read like they haven't actually tried it yet. Which is also interesting, I myself actively put off trying it until I eventually gave in. It seems a lot of us are doing the same, maybe its a case of "how good could it actually be?"
  - famouswaffles 4y ago
    Not trying it yet is fine. Making declarative statements on a product you haven't even used is just absurd. Dude clearly hasn't used GPT for translation before and his next reply is telling me the ways GPT should fail based on his pre-conceived notions of its abilities. Except i have actually extensively tested(publicly too) LLMs for translation (even before GPT-4) and basically everything he says is just plain wrong. I'll never understand why people behave like this.
    - numpad0 4y ago
      Apparently GPT-4 can't handle "all this talk about only getting explicit meaning across would be easily dispelled in an afternoon if you only bothered to try.", which isn't simple as "Ace Attorney" but I'd think it's still a small stretch to say "everything he says is just plain wrong".
      - famouswaffles 4y ago
        I'm not sure what you tried to do ? You tried to translate to another language or ?
      - famouswaffles 4y ago
        I think you're trying to translate to japanese ? anyway this is what i got 実際に翻訳のためにGPT-4を使ったことがありますか？本当に、使ってみたら簡単に明確な意味だけを伝えるという話は消えるでしょう。
        numpad0 4y ago
        aaand we got a new one... in chronological order: 1) 本当に、明示的な意味だけを伝えるという話が、試してみるだけで簡単に解決できるなんて、冗談じゃないですか。 2) 本気で、伝えたい意味だけを伝えるという話は、ちょっと試してみれば簡単に解決できると思うのですが。 3) 本当に、試してみるだけで簡単に払拭できると思うのに、この「明確な意味だけが伝わる」話ばかりで。 4) 本当に、使ってみたら簡単に明確な意味だけを伝えるという話は消えるでしょう。 1) is literally opposite of intent, shrugs off the idea that the talks clear up, 2) can be interpreted as someone discussing about keeping scope on a topic, 3) is not so literal and also turning sentence inside 「」 into a sort of an imperative, 4) ... I'm not sure what it's trying to say ... 本当に、/使ってみたら/簡単に/明確な/意味/だけ/を伝える/という話/は消えるでしょう。/ "Really,/ if used /simply/clear/meaning/only/is conveyed/that story/will disappear./" ... Machine translations used to be like that when I was installing game demos from CD.
- wizzwizz4 4y ago
  GPT-4 can (1) translate, (2) plagiarise, and (3) feedback ("thinking out loud"). Its ability to feedback (3) allows it to execute algorithms, but only a certain class of algorithms. Without tailored prompting, it's further restricted to (a weak generalisation of) algorithms spelled out in its corpus. This is very cool, but this is a skill I possess too, so it's rarely useful to me. Its ability to plagiarise (2) can make it seem like it has capacity that it doesn't possess, but it's usually possible to poke holes in that facade (if not even identify the sources it's plagiarising from!). It is genuinely capable of explicit translation (1) – though a dedicated setup for translation will work better than ChatGPT-style prompting, even on the same model. A sufficiently-large, sufficiently well-trained model will be genuinely capable of translating idiomatic language (for known idioms), for the same reason it can translate grammatical structures (for known grammar). It can only perform higher-level, "abstract" translations – like those necessary to translate a Phoenix Wright game – if it's overfit on a corpus where such translations exist. (https://xkcd.com/2048/ https://xkcd.com/2048/ last graph) This is not a property you want from a translation model: it gives better results on some inputs, sure, and confident-seeming very wrong results on other inputs. These are two sides of the same coin (2). When the computer can't translate something, I want to be able to look at the result and go "this doesn't look right; I'll crack out a dictionary". I can't do that with GPT-4, because it doesn't give faithfully-literal translations and it isn't capable of giving complete translations correctly: it's not fit for this purpose.
  - famouswaffles 4y ago
    Ok so you haven't used it then. I don't care about your whack theories on what it can and can't do. I care about results. You're starting from weird assumptions that don't hold up on the capabilities of the model and then determining its abilities from there. It's extremely silly. Next time, use a product extensively for the specified task before you declare what it is and isn't good for. Literally, everything you've said is just wrong. Can't generate "abstract" translations unless overfit. Lol okay. I've translated passages of fiction across multiple novels to test.
    - wizzwizz4 4y ago
AlanYx 4y ago
>no machine translation system currently in existence could translate the 逆転裁判 games to Ace Attorney games Maybe it's already in the training set, but GPT-4 does give that exact translation. I've found that GPT-4 is exceptionally good at translating idioms and other big picture translation issues. Where it occasionally makes mistakes is with small grammatical and word order issues that previous tools do tend to get right.
- wizzwizz4 4y ago
  > Maybe it's already in the training set, but GPT-4 does give that exact translation. The corpus includes Wikipedia, so yes, it's in there. That's the kind of thing I'd expect it to be good at, along with idioms, when the model gets large enough. I meant that no machine translation system could translate the games. Thanks to an early localisation decision, you have to do more than just translate words into words for this series, making it a hard problem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Wright:_Ace_Attorney https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Wright:_Ace_Attorney > While the original version of the game takes place in Japan, the localization is set in the United States; this became an issue when localizing later games, where the Japanese setting was more obvious. Among other things, translators have to choose which Japanese elements to keep and which to replace with US equivalents, while maintaining internal consistency with the localisation decisions of previous games. Doing a good job requires more than just linguistic competence: there's nothing you could put in the corpus to give a GPT-style system the ability to perform this task.
- numpad0 4y ago
  Can you try this[0]? I have no access to the -4... Have you actually used GPT-4 for translation? Seriously all this talk about only getting explicit meaning across would be easily dispelled in an afternoon if you only bothered to try. Bing Chat: GPT-4を翻訳に使用したことがありますか？本当に明示的な意味しか伝えられないという話は、試してみれば午後には簡単に反証できます。 (Have you utilized GPT-4 for translations? The story that only really explicit meaning can be conveyed, can be easily disproved by afternoon if tried.) Google: 実際にGPT-4を翻訳に使ったことはありますか? 真剣に、明示的な意味だけを理解することについてのこのすべての話は、あなたが試してみるだけなら、午後には簡単に払拭されるでしょう. (Have you actually used GPT-4 for translation? Seriously, This stories of all about understanding solely explicit meanings are, if it is only for you to try, will be easily swept away by afternoon.) DeepL: 実際にGPT-4を使って翻訳したことがあるのですか？明示的な意味しか伝わらないという話は、やってみようと思えば、午後には簡単に払拭されるはずです。 (Do you have experience of actually translating using GPT-4? The story that only explicit meaning is conveyed, if so desired, can be easily swept away by afternoon) If I'd do it: GPT-4を翻訳に使ったことがあって言ってる? 真面目に言って、表層的な意味しか取れないとかないって暇な時にやってみれば分かると思うんだけど。 (Are you saying having used GPT-4 for translation? Seriously speaking, I think that it only gets superficial meaning isn't [true] if [you] would try [it] when [you'd] have time.) 0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35530380 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35530380
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

famouswaffles 4y ago

Have you actually used GPT-4 for translation? Seriously all this talk about only getting explicit meaning across would be easily dispelled in an afternoon if you only bothered to try.

qorrect 4y ago
Agreed. A lot of these responses read like they haven't actually tried it yet. Which is also interesting, I myself actively put off trying it until I eventually gave in. It seems a lot of us are doing the same, maybe its a case of "how good could it actually be?"
- famouswaffles 4y ago
  Not trying it yet is fine. Making declarative statements on a product you haven't even used is just absurd. Dude clearly hasn't used GPT for translation before and his next reply is telling me the ways GPT should fail based on his pre-conceived notions of its abilities. Except i have actually extensively tested(publicly too) LLMs for translation (even before GPT-4) and basically everything he says is just plain wrong. I'll never understand why people behave like this.
  - numpad0 4y ago
    Apparently GPT-4 can't handle "all this talk about only getting explicit meaning across would be easily dispelled in an afternoon if you only bothered to try.", which isn't simple as "Ace Attorney" but I'd think it's still a small stretch to say "everything he says is just plain wrong".
    - famouswaffles 4y ago
      I'm not sure what you tried to do ? You tried to translate to another language or ?
    - famouswaffles 4y ago
      I think you're trying to translate to japanese ? anyway this is what i got 実際に翻訳のためにGPT-4を使ったことがありますか？本当に、使ってみたら簡単に明確な意味だけを伝えるという話は消えるでしょう。
      - numpad0 4y ago
        aaand we got a new one... in chronological order: 1) 本当に、明示的な意味だけを伝えるという話が、試してみるだけで簡単に解決できるなんて、冗談じゃないですか。 2) 本気で、伝えたい意味だけを伝えるという話は、ちょっと試してみれば簡単に解決できると思うのですが。 3) 本当に、試してみるだけで簡単に払拭できると思うのに、この「明確な意味だけが伝わる」話ばかりで。 4) 本当に、使ってみたら簡単に明確な意味だけを伝えるという話は消えるでしょう。 1) is literally opposite of intent, shrugs off the idea that the talks clear up, 2) can be interpreted as someone discussing about keeping scope on a topic, 3) is not so literal and also turning sentence inside 「」 into a sort of an imperative, 4) ... I'm not sure what it's trying to say ... 本当に、/使ってみたら/簡単に/明確な/意味/だけ/を伝える/という話/は消えるでしょう。/ "Really,/ if used /simply/clear/meaning/only/is conveyed/that story/will disappear./" ... Machine translations used to be like that when I was installing game demos from CD.
wizzwizz4 4y ago
GPT-4 can (1) translate, (2) plagiarise, and (3) feedback ("thinking out loud"). Its ability to feedback (3) allows it to execute algorithms, but only a certain class of algorithms. Without tailored prompting, it's further restricted to (a weak generalisation of) algorithms spelled out in its corpus. This is very cool, but this is a skill I possess too, so it's rarely useful to me. Its ability to plagiarise (2) can make it seem like it has capacity that it doesn't possess, but it's usually possible to poke holes in that facade (if not even identify the sources it's plagiarising from!). It is genuinely capable of explicit translation (1) – though a dedicated setup for translation will work better than ChatGPT-style prompting, even on the same model. A sufficiently-large, sufficiently well-trained model will be genuinely capable of translating idiomatic language (for known idioms), for the same reason it can translate grammatical structures (for known grammar). It can only perform higher-level, "abstract" translations – like those necessary to translate a Phoenix Wright game – if it's overfit on a corpus where such translations exist. (https://xkcd.com/2048/ https://xkcd.com/2048/ last graph) This is not a property you want from a translation model: it gives better results on some inputs, sure, and confident-seeming very wrong results on other inputs. These are two sides of the same coin (2). When the computer can't translate something, I want to be able to look at the result and go "this doesn't look right; I'll crack out a dictionary". I can't do that with GPT-4, because it doesn't give faithfully-literal translations and it isn't capable of giving complete translations correctly: it's not fit for this purpose.
- famouswaffles 4y ago
  Ok so you haven't used it then. I don't care about your whack theories on what it can and can't do. I care about results. You're starting from weird assumptions that don't hold up on the capabilities of the model and then determining its abilities from there. It's extremely silly. Next time, use a product extensively for the specified task before you declare what it is and isn't good for. Literally, everything you've said is just wrong. Can't generate "abstract" translations unless overfit. Lol okay. I've translated passages of fiction across multiple novels to test.
  - wizzwizz4 4y ago

AlanYx 4y ago

>no machine translation system currently in existence could translate the 逆転裁判 games to Ace Attorney games Maybe it's already in the training set, but GPT-4 does give that exact translation. I've found that GPT-4 is exceptionally good at translating idioms and other big picture translation issues. Where it occasionally makes mistakes is with small grammatical and word order issues that previous tools do tend to get right.

wizzwizz4 4y ago
> Maybe it's already in the training set, but GPT-4 does give that exact translation. The corpus includes Wikipedia, so yes, it's in there. That's the kind of thing I'd expect it to be good at, along with idioms, when the model gets large enough. I meant that no machine translation system could translate the games. Thanks to an early localisation decision, you have to do more than just translate words into words for this series, making it a hard problem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Wright:_Ace_Attorney https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Wright:_Ace_Attorney > While the original version of the game takes place in Japan, the localization is set in the United States; this became an issue when localizing later games, where the Japanese setting was more obvious. Among other things, translators have to choose which Japanese elements to keep and which to replace with US equivalents, while maintaining internal consistency with the localisation decisions of previous games. Doing a good job requires more than just linguistic competence: there's nothing you could put in the corpus to give a GPT-style system the ability to perform this task.
numpad0 4y ago
Can you try this[0]? I have no access to the -4... Have you actually used GPT-4 for translation? Seriously all this talk about only getting explicit meaning across would be easily dispelled in an afternoon if you only bothered to try. Bing Chat: GPT-4を翻訳に使用したことがありますか？本当に明示的な意味しか伝えられないという話は、試してみれば午後には簡単に反証できます。 (Have you utilized GPT-4 for translations? The story that only really explicit meaning can be conveyed, can be easily disproved by afternoon if tried.) Google: 実際にGPT-4を翻訳に使ったことはありますか? 真剣に、明示的な意味だけを理解することについてのこのすべての話は、あなたが試してみるだけなら、午後には簡単に払拭されるでしょう. (Have you actually used GPT-4 for translation? Seriously, This stories of all about understanding solely explicit meanings are, if it is only for you to try, will be easily swept away by afternoon.) DeepL: 実際にGPT-4を使って翻訳したことがあるのですか？明示的な意味しか伝わらないという話は、やってみようと思えば、午後には簡単に払拭されるはずです。 (Do you have experience of actually translating using GPT-4? The story that only explicit meaning is conveyed, if so desired, can be easily swept away by afternoon) If I'd do it: GPT-4を翻訳に使ったことがあって言ってる? 真面目に言って、表層的な意味しか取れないとかないって暇な時にやってみれば分かると思うんだけど。 (Are you saying having used GPT-4 for translation? Seriously speaking, I think that it only gets superficial meaning isn't [true] if [you] would try [it] when [you'd] have time.) 0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35530380 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35530380

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]