Ask ChatGPT – March 4, 2024

My Conversations with ChatGPT
Machine Translation (MT) and translations generated by AI have brought about a paradigm shift in the translation industry. The output of MT will continue to improve, especially when associated with clients’ translation memories and human editing. Language Service Providers are adapting and are including MT in their processes, when MT is applicable. While linguists will continue to be essential in the process, their role will shift from that of translators to validators of content generated by MT. At Excel Translations, we wanted to know what AI thinks about all of this and decided to have an open conversation on the matter with ChatGPT. I will regularly publish a question and ChatGPT’s response, uncensored.

QUESTION 113:

Does AI and machine translation help LSP’s with rare and unheard of languages?

Chat GPT’s Response:

AI and machine translation can provide valuable assistance to Language Service Providers (LSPs) working with rare and unheard-of languages. Here’s how:

1. Translation Assistance: For languages with limited linguistic resources, AI can aid in the translation process. While traditional translation tools may not have sufficient data for these languages, machine translation models trained on a diverse range of languages can still provide a starting point for human translators. This can help LSPs save time and improve overall efficiency.
2. Gathering Context: AI tools can assist in gathering context and information related to rare languages from various sources on the internet. This can help LSPs and translators understand the nuances, cultural references, and specific terminology associated with these languages.
3. Terminology Consistency: AI-driven translation tools can assist in maintaining consistency in terminology, which is crucial for accurate and reliable translations. This is especially helpful when dealing with languages that lack standardized terminology.
4. Resource Building: AI can aid LSPs in building linguistic resources for rare languages by analyzing and extracting information from existing documents, websites, or other text sources. This can contribute to creating language databases and dictionaries.
5. Efficient Communication: AI-powered language processing tools can facilitate communication between translators and clients by offering real-time translation and interpretation services, even for languages with limited availability of human interpreters.

However, it’s important to note that while AI can be a valuable tool, it is not a complete substitute for human expertise, especially when dealing with languages that have complex cultural and contextual nuances. Human translators with proficiency in the specific language and cultural understanding remain essential for ensuring accurate and culturally appropriate translations, particularly for rare and unheard-of languages.

Moreover, building machine translation models for such languages might be challenging due to limited training data, so a combination of human expertise and AI tools is often the most effective approach.