9 ms·

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 t

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...
- bryanrasmussen 3y ago
  Joke that I heard was supposed to come from the 1880s. Some travelers stop off at an inn in the Swiss Alps, and they notice that are the various tables at the inn are other nationalities. They amuse themselves by listening in on the conversations (and displaying their stereotypes) - the Italians are all talking at the same time very loud and never stop moving their hands, the French are all arrogant artistes, the Danes are boring and only talk about the weather, and then they notice the Germans. There was obviously a very important conversation going on with the Germans because one German would say something and every other German would stop and listen intently until they were done, and then another one would start up and every one would stop and listen intently until that one was done, but in following the conversation it became clear it was not because the conversation was important, but because the Germans were waiting to hear the verb to understand what was being said.
foota 3y ago
I wonder if an esolang exists that could be a universal target though (if a language can handle any ambiguity by appending, then it could always be output without backtracking).
- Aerbil313 3y ago
  Ithkuil?
MauranKilom 3y ago
And sometimes that modification is not just "we don't know which verb it ends in" but "the whole structure is different than expected": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden-path_sentence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden-path_sentence
generalizations 3y ago
So just add 5 seconds of latency?
pmoriarty 3y ago
sometimes humans too don't know what they're going to say until they've said it

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...

bryanrasmussen 3y ago
Joke that I heard was supposed to come from the 1880s. Some travelers stop off at an inn in the Swiss Alps, and they notice that are the various tables at the inn are other nationalities. They amuse themselves by listening in on the conversations (and displaying their stereotypes) - the Italians are all talking at the same time very loud and never stop moving their hands, the French are all arrogant artistes, the Danes are boring and only talk about the weather, and then they notice the Germans. There was obviously a very important conversation going on with the Germans because one German would say something and every other German would stop and listen intently until they were done, and then another one would start up and every one would stop and listen intently until that one was done, but in following the conversation it became clear it was not because the conversation was important, but because the Germans were waiting to hear the verb to understand what was being said.

foota 3y ago

I wonder if an esolang exists that could be a universal target though (if a language can handle any ambiguity by appending, then it could always be output without backtracking).

Aerbil313 3y ago
Ithkuil?

MauranKilom 3y ago

And sometimes that modification is not just "we don't know which verb it ends in" but "the whole structure is different than expected": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden-path_sentence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden-path_sentence

generalizations 3y ago

So just add 5 seconds of latency?

pmoriarty 3y ago

sometimes humans too don't know what they're going to say until they've said it