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‘It gets more and more confused’: can AI replace translators? (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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A Dutch publisher has announced that it will use AI to translate some of its books – but those in the industry are worried about the consequences if this becomes the norm.

and so it begins...

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 4 days ago

When it comes to how people feel about AI translation, there is a definite distinction between utility and craft. Few object to using AI in the same way as a dictionary, to discern meaning. But translators, of course, do much more than that. As Dawson puts it: “These writers are artists in their own right.”

That's basically my experience.

LLMs are useful for translation in three situations:

declension/conjugation table - faster than checking a dictionary
listing potential translations for a word or expression
a second row of spell/grammar-proofing, just to catch issues that you didn't

Past that, LLM-based translations are a sea of slop: they screw up with the tone and style, add stuff not present in the original, repeat sentences, remove critical bits, pick unsuitable synonyms, so goes on. All the bloody time.

And if you're handling dialogue, they will fuck it up even in shorter excerpts, by making all characters sound the same.