Re: [tlug] Free program translates Euro languages to/from English

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

>>>>> "Josh" == Josh Glover <jmglov@example.com> writes:

    Josh> On 11/3/05, Micheal E Cooper
    Josh> <network-admin@example.com> wrote:

    >> Again true, but to be fair, my first bachelors was in English,
    >> and I can tell you that literary theory, criticism, and
    >> scholarly work on the whole is thick with needlessly long,
    >> complex sentences the purpose of which is 10% to convey meaning
    >> and 90% to raise the author in the intellectual pecking order.

"Deconstructionism" is the longest 4-letter word in the English
language.  :-)

    >> I really do doubt that we will be able to encode enough context
    >> and knowledge to make machine translation viable for anything
    >> but the most basic of communication.

    Josh> Moore's Law would seem to imply otherwise. 20 years ago,
    Josh> would anyone believe how much data has been encoded and is
    Josh> available just on the Internet? Vast databases is the
    Josh> future, and the sky's the limit.

It's not just the amount of data; it's the interrelationships.  They
used to talk about the Connection Machine, but that's nothing compared
to the _real_ connection machine: the human brain.

While computers will "learn" to do translation and will get good at it
in the reasonably near future (heck, they can already do
"deconstructionist" well enough to get published in major journals),
it won't be algorithmic.  I wouldn't call it "machine translation".

    Josh> This is an AI application if I ever saw one. Sci-fi
    Josh> territory? Maybe not. After all, isn't Google's spidering
    Josh> and indexing technology a primitive version of what you
    Josh> describe?

Yeah, but I doubt it's going to get itself incarnated (literally) and
go lusting after Lazarus Long anytime soon.

    >> That having been said, it seems to me that, rather than trying
    >> to make a system that will translate for you (so that you can
    >> fire the translator) or an online educ package that will teach
    >> for you (so that you can fire some teachers), it seems more
    >> sensible to focus on creating tools that will allow translators
    >> and teachers to do what they do better and more efficiently.

    Josh> I think we need both.

I don't think there's a difference.

    Josh> I think this will be true of machine translation, as
    Josh> well. Human translators will be free to focus on great works
    Josh> of literature, etc., and not have to worry about translating
    Josh> oshirase. :)

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