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I worked for years as a translator (PT/EN). I hated 'just correcting' bad translations, from software or people bad at it. I cannot figure out why anyone would
by namaria 3y ago
I worked for years as a translator (PT/EN). I hated 'just correcting' bad translations, from software or people bad at it. I cannot figure out why anyone would think generating half baked text or code with some generic tool and then have to parse it, identify errors and correct it would be preferable to just doing it right yourself. It's much less pleasant work.
- dr_dshiv 3y agoI’ve been working with a professional Latin translator and encouraging her to use GPT4. She gagged, said it would be more work and against professional ethics. Still, I’ve been able to use GPT4 to read Latin fluently… and I often find it’s translations to be more readable. It here is an insane amount of untranslated Latin—and now I don’t have to pay 8k just to read a book.
- namaria 3y agoI'd rather have access to less text that I know to be right then a lot that might be wrong in subtle ways I cannot detect.
- kenjackson 3y agoThat’s a reasonable take. The opposite take is also reasonable. So I think there will be a market for both.
- namaria 3y agoThere's a huge market for Real Housewives style 'reality' TV...
- kenjackson 3y agoThere is. Better than a lot of what many critics consider good TV. Turns out that one size doesn’t fit all.
- namaria 3y agoNo, and I'm glad there's something for everyone. I'd hate to live in a world where only things approved by some definition of good are available. Doesn't lead me to think that high demand for something makes that something a reasonable thing.
- kenjackson 3y agoYou're basically saying that if you don't like the take then it's not reasonable. I find that unreasonable. :-)
- namaria 3y agoI think "cheap iffy translations are great because cheap" and "rich people drinking and fighting over parties" are pretty unreasonable things. I'm proud of that stance.
- dr_dshiv 3y agoAll translations are wrong, if that helps. Some are useful.
- doseijin 3y agoIndeed, learn the language instead.
- thiht 3y agoHonestly this is an issue I have with Copilot: I hate reading and correcting the code it produces. The time I save by having it generate a block of 10 lines is lost by me having to review it carefully and fixing bugs (sometimes subtle). I prefer doing it myself from scratch most of the time.
- namaria 3y agoI think this is a result of conflating the act of coding with code as a result. The effort in understanding a domain and specifying a program is about learning and communicating about it with other people. A working program is useful, but deepening knowledge about a business domain and being able to adapt to changes on the ground is the real value. Being accidentally right but unable to be consistently right over time is a distraction. It can generate false confidence, and future maintenance burdens.