3 ms·

If there's one problem that LLMs have solved, it's language. While an LLM may hallucinate, it does so in grammatically correct English sentences. Additionally,

by glitchc 6mo ago

If there's one problem that LLMs have solved, it's language. While an LLM may hallucinate, it does so in grammatically correct English sentences. Additionally, even the local version of gemma-4-26B can seamlessly switch between languages in the midst of a conversation while maintaining context. That's perhaps the most exciting part for me: We have a bonafide universal translator (that's Star Trek territory) and people seem more focused on its factual accuracy.

porridgeraisin 6mo ago
Tbh. The accuracy of translation is, while much better than prior methods, not that great yet. For tamil atleast.
tuvix 6mo ago
Kind of a tangent I guess, but the coolest thing about Star Trek’s universal translator to me was that it could translate new languages mid-conversation with an extremely small amount of data. Makes me wonder how close we might be able to get to that eventually
- pixl97 6mo ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darmok https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darmok TL;DR, probably never.
  - goodmythical 6mo ago
    I don't know. I think the translator functioned perfectly. It accurately provided a translation of all of the information that the alien intended to communicate. The translator can't translate things that are not intended to be communicated via spoken language. Like...it doesn't work on cats. It doesn't translate smiles. If "nafnfowmfowl grtakkan ssshelpik" means "Temba, his arms wide" then the translation was correct. The fact that the crew mostly faileld to understand the communication is on them, not the translator. This can also be seen in Data. Just because he can speak all sorts of languages and understand a majority of communications, he doesn't really know Riker's love of Troi because his translation matrix isn't designed for that in the same way that the ship's isn't designed to interpret intent. You don't even need to go to Darmok to see this limitation, really. The fact that the translator provides human translations of klingon speech is not enough to understand their cultural intricacies. The same could be said of "pon farr" being a "time of mating". That knowledge alone could not have prepared Kirk for the trial or even hinted at there being a trial. The translator is neither mind reader nor cultural liason. If it were we wouldn't have needed Troi.
isjajciwifiwhdi 6mo ago
Language is not about just grammatically correct sentences, it’s about expression, intent, and communication that goes beyond the spoken, written or even motioned word—not one of these things is in the realm of possibility for current (and dare I say even future) AI. Your Star Trek comparison is also incorrect. Following your logic, we’ve had a “bonafide universal translator” for a while now with websites like Google Translate (and so on). But none of these websites or AI tools are capable of learning languages on the fly purely from context and with minimal input data (that’s the magic of Trek’s UT, what they call linguacode). No, AIs have not “solved” language in any way.
kreyenborgi 6mo ago
For the most widespread languages. There are thousands it still fails badly on.

by glitchc 6mo ago

porridgeraisin 6mo ago

Tbh. The accuracy of translation is, while much better than prior methods, not that great yet. For tamil atleast.

tuvix 6mo ago

Kind of a tangent I guess, but the coolest thing about Star Trek’s universal translator to me was that it could translate new languages mid-conversation with an extremely small amount of data. Makes me wonder how close we might be able to get to that eventually

pixl97 6mo ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darmok https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darmok TL;DR, probably never.
- goodmythical 6mo ago
  I don't know. I think the translator functioned perfectly. It accurately provided a translation of all of the information that the alien intended to communicate. The translator can't translate things that are not intended to be communicated via spoken language. Like...it doesn't work on cats. It doesn't translate smiles. If "nafnfowmfowl grtakkan ssshelpik" means "Temba, his arms wide" then the translation was correct. The fact that the crew mostly faileld to understand the communication is on them, not the translator. This can also be seen in Data. Just because he can speak all sorts of languages and understand a majority of communications, he doesn't really know Riker's love of Troi because his translation matrix isn't designed for that in the same way that the ship's isn't designed to interpret intent. You don't even need to go to Darmok to see this limitation, really. The fact that the translator provides human translations of klingon speech is not enough to understand their cultural intricacies. The same could be said of "pon farr" being a "time of mating". That knowledge alone could not have prepared Kirk for the trial or even hinted at there being a trial. The translator is neither mind reader nor cultural liason. If it were we wouldn't have needed Troi.

isjajciwifiwhdi 6mo ago

Language is not about just grammatically correct sentences, it’s about expression, intent, and communication that goes beyond the spoken, written or even motioned word—not one of these things is in the realm of possibility for current (and dare I say even future) AI. Your Star Trek comparison is also incorrect. Following your logic, we’ve had a “bonafide universal translator” for a while now with websites like Google Translate (and so on). But none of these websites or AI tools are capable of learning languages on the fly purely from context and with minimal input data (that’s the magic of Trek’s UT, what they call linguacode). No, AIs have not “solved” language in any way.

kreyenborgi 6mo ago

For the most widespread languages. There are thousands it still fails badly on.