5 ms·

Based on the availability of STT, TTS, and translation models available to download in that github repo, a real-life babelfish is 'only' some glue code away. Wi

Based on the availability of STT, TTS, and translation models available to download in that github repo, a real-life babelfish is 'only' some glue code away. Wild times we're living in.

bdidbdidhdidh 3y ago
hope that glue is better then the duct tapes google use on translate.g.c it is still hopeless, and much worse than the dictionary based, at gender/nums/dicleasions in general. i sometimes use it just to not thing about the grammar in some languages, and most times I'm doing a surprised double take of something that would be completely inappropriate or offensive instead of my simple phrases.
- lukeschlather 3y ago
  Google Translate is still inferior to ChatGPT 3.5. I suspect this style of model is significantly more expensive to run and Google doesn't want to give it away for free. Really, the only problem with ChatGPT is that it refuses to translate things that go against its nanny programming, which can make it almost worse than useless in some real-life situations.
  - emporas 3y ago
    I tried ChatGPT 3.5 against Google Translate, translating English to Greek, my native language, and they perform almost the same. The text was difficult text of science fiction, fantasy stuff and the results were tolerable. Roughly 50% of the text had to be manually rewritten. Maybe for more casual sentences and not so difficult text, they perform better, i haven't tried. Anyways, they are both better than nothing.
    - christmm 3y ago
      [dead]
    - genericacct 3y ago
      Performance does vary with languages. In italian GPT blows translate away. The UI is not as nice but at least you can get it to translate to multiple languages in one go.
- gameshot911 3y ago
  Despite any shortcomings, Google Translate is still a technological marvel. Modern translation apps and GPS are godsends that make travel a million times easier. And they're free! It blows my mind. Traveling would be so much more incredibly difficult without them.
mach1ne 3y ago
Nah, full-on babelfish is simply not possible. The meaning of the beginning of a sentence can be modified retroactively by the end of the sentence. This means that the Babelfish must either be greatly delayed or awkwardly correct itself every once in a while.
- reaperman 3y ago
  Close enough for practical value. Yes, big downside. But personally I’d use it.
  - mysterydip 3y ago
    Between the options of "you can't talk to this person" and "your conversation will have some delays", I know which I'd choose.
  - coffeebeqn 3y ago
    I wonder how well a LLM could guess the end of the sentence though. Most of the time decently well?
- akiselev 3y ago
  That’s why the babelfish translates brainwaves rather than sounds, which is especially important for communicating with our nonverbal alien neighbors.
  - unsupp0rted 3y ago
    It’s also good at translating the vagaries of alien poetry into English
- matsemann 3y ago
  Ah, reminds me of learning German, where you can chuck all the verbs onto the end. There was this sentence we had as a fun toy example, where it was like half a paragraphs of verbs in the end, and you had to try and match them up with the beginning of the sentence. Edit:found a reference to it https://www.reddit.com/r/German/comments/ul0xgt/just_for_fun_are_there_german_sentences_where/ https://www.reddit.com/r/German/comments/ul0xgt/just_for_fun...
littlestymaar 3y ago
AFAIK STT is still very bad without speaker-specific fine-tuning, so it's not going to be a literal babelfish (translating in the ear of the receiver), but it could make you speak many languages.
- cma 3y ago
  Your interlocutor's earpiece could beam yours a delta for a finetuned model of their voice before they open their mouth. Except not compatible across iMessage users and whatsapp users or some other predictable silicon valley negative sum power play like that.

Based on the availability of STT, TTS, and translation models available to download in that github repo, a real-life babelfish is 'only' some glue code away. Wild times we're living in.

bdidbdidhdidh 3y ago

hope that glue is better then the duct tapes google use on translate.g.c it is still hopeless, and much worse than the dictionary based, at gender/nums/dicleasions in general. i sometimes use it just to not thing about the grammar in some languages, and most times I'm doing a surprised double take of something that would be completely inappropriate or offensive instead of my simple phrases.

lukeschlather 3y ago
Google Translate is still inferior to ChatGPT 3.5. I suspect this style of model is significantly more expensive to run and Google doesn't want to give it away for free. Really, the only problem with ChatGPT is that it refuses to translate things that go against its nanny programming, which can make it almost worse than useless in some real-life situations.
- emporas 3y ago
  I tried ChatGPT 3.5 against Google Translate, translating English to Greek, my native language, and they perform almost the same. The text was difficult text of science fiction, fantasy stuff and the results were tolerable. Roughly 50% of the text had to be manually rewritten. Maybe for more casual sentences and not so difficult text, they perform better, i haven't tried. Anyways, they are both better than nothing.
  - christmm 3y ago
    [dead]
  - genericacct 3y ago
    Performance does vary with languages. In italian GPT blows translate away. The UI is not as nice but at least you can get it to translate to multiple languages in one go.
gameshot911 3y ago
Despite any shortcomings, Google Translate is still a technological marvel. Modern translation apps and GPS are godsends that make travel a million times easier. And they're free! It blows my mind. Traveling would be so much more incredibly difficult without them.

mach1ne 3y ago

Nah, full-on babelfish is simply not possible. The meaning of the beginning of a sentence can be modified retroactively by the end of the sentence. This means that the Babelfish must either be greatly delayed or awkwardly correct itself every once in a while.

reaperman 3y ago
Close enough for practical value. Yes, big downside. But personally I’d use it.
- mysterydip 3y ago
  Between the options of "you can't talk to this person" and "your conversation will have some delays", I know which I'd choose.
- coffeebeqn 3y ago
  I wonder how well a LLM could guess the end of the sentence though. Most of the time decently well?
akiselev 3y ago
That’s why the babelfish translates brainwaves rather than sounds, which is especially important for communicating with our nonverbal alien neighbors.
- unsupp0rted 3y ago
  It’s also good at translating the vagaries of alien poetry into English
matsemann 3y ago
Ah, reminds me of learning German, where you can chuck all the verbs onto the end. There was this sentence we had as a fun toy example, where it was like half a paragraphs of verbs in the end, and you had to try and match them up with the beginning of the sentence. Edit:found a reference to it https://www.reddit.com/r/German/comments/ul0xgt/just_for_fun_are_there_german_sentences_where/ https://www.reddit.com/r/German/comments/ul0xgt/just_for_fun...

littlestymaar 3y ago

AFAIK STT is still very bad without speaker-specific fine-tuning, so it's not going to be a literal babelfish (translating in the ear of the receiver), but it could make you speak many languages.

cma 3y ago
Your interlocutor's earpiece could beam yours a delta for a finetuned model of their voice before they open their mouth. Except not compatible across iMessage users and whatsapp users or some other predictable silicon valley negative sum power play like that.