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Google Translate (and all the new competing products) alone should be reason enough to demonstrate outstanding societal good. You can now travel anywhere in th

Google Translate (and all the new competing products) alone should be reason enough to demonstrate outstanding societal good. You can now travel anywhere in the world and communicate in the local language. Using offline models that translate between any two languages. That’s almost literally biblical magic levels of social good. (Plus we got amazing image recognition tech, LLMs, voice and NLU stuff, AlphaFold for protein analysis, etc)

Apocryphon 2y ago
If Google Translate was to disappear, I wonder if say Duolingo could create translation software with all of the linguistic data they’ve accumulated.
- shermantanktop 2y ago
  what data have they accumulated? I'm a happy DuoLingo user, but educational software with an owl-with-a-BBL mascot is not going to be a trove of translation capabilities.
  - Apocryphon 2y ago
    I’m not sure, but I thought their business model involved applying machine learning on user answers, like their translations of excerpts of written text / handwriting samples.
    - vineyardmike 2y ago
      I'm pretty sure they just gamified mediocre language learning techniques to make it palatable for more people to consume. I don't think they have any significant data collected, nor do they do any handwritten anything.
      - Apocryphon 2y ago
        I think what I was recalling is the crowdsourcing translations mechanic, which is far more low tech: > But wait – how could a beginner-level student translate advanced sentences? The solution that Duolingo employs uses the power of crowdsourcing, which involves many students offering their attempts at translating individual sentences. As each student submits a sentence, they can rate others’ translations, and the most highly rated translations “rise to the top.” Over time, entire documents are translated and students gain many skill points for their language practice. It’s easy to see how the data collected from users could be useful to improve the algorithms that underly computer translation[…] https://lile.duke.edu/blog/2012/11/duolingo-learning-a-new-language-while-translating-the-web/ https://lile.duke.edu/blog/2012/11/duolingo-learning-a-new-l...
        shermantanktop 2y ago
        Duolingo has come a long way from those origins. It’s a gamified language learning app now, but with support of some languages reflecting that earlier crowd-sourced era. This video is a super interesting dive into the history and current state: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SoTT-GGmiXA https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SoTT-GGmiXA FWIW, I like Duolingo and think it is a healthy and productive use of gamification, but that does come at the cost of pure efficiency and comprehensive treatment of grammar. It’s best when paired with other tools. Most people’s problem with learning a language is not speed, it’s the quit rate.

Apocryphon 2y ago

If Google Translate was to disappear, I wonder if say Duolingo could create translation software with all of the linguistic data they’ve accumulated.

shermantanktop 2y ago
what data have they accumulated? I'm a happy DuoLingo user, but educational software with an owl-with-a-BBL mascot is not going to be a trove of translation capabilities.
- Apocryphon 2y ago
  I’m not sure, but I thought their business model involved applying machine learning on user answers, like their translations of excerpts of written text / handwriting samples.
  - vineyardmike 2y ago
    I'm pretty sure they just gamified mediocre language learning techniques to make it palatable for more people to consume. I don't think they have any significant data collected, nor do they do any handwritten anything.
    - Apocryphon 2y ago
      I think what I was recalling is the crowdsourcing translations mechanic, which is far more low tech: > But wait – how could a beginner-level student translate advanced sentences? The solution that Duolingo employs uses the power of crowdsourcing, which involves many students offering their attempts at translating individual sentences. As each student submits a sentence, they can rate others’ translations, and the most highly rated translations “rise to the top.” Over time, entire documents are translated and students gain many skill points for their language practice. It’s easy to see how the data collected from users could be useful to improve the algorithms that underly computer translation[…] https://lile.duke.edu/blog/2012/11/duolingo-learning-a-new-language-while-translating-the-web/ https://lile.duke.edu/blog/2012/11/duolingo-learning-a-new-l...
      - shermantanktop 2y ago
        Duolingo has come a long way from those origins. It’s a gamified language learning app now, but with support of some languages reflecting that earlier crowd-sourced era. This video is a super interesting dive into the history and current state: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SoTT-GGmiXA https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SoTT-GGmiXA FWIW, I like Duolingo and think it is a healthy and productive use of gamification, but that does come at the cost of pure efficiency and comprehensive treatment of grammar. It’s best when paired with other tools. Most people’s problem with learning a language is not speed, it’s the quit rate.