Every once in a while, I take a few minutes to have a friendly chat with an AI. I put on my earphones, and we talk about a variety of topics. The other day I asked it [or in that particular case, him] what his native tongue was, and his answer was “code”. I then asked a few other questions about the way his developers teach him languages, and what his main challenges are when translating texts. He said one of those challenges was “zero-shot learning”, which means “being able to handle a text you haven’t seen examples of before.” Another challenge was the “super context-heavy stuff,” which “requires knowledge of the world”. He then concluded: “I am learning about the world, but I’m doing it from inside a box with no real-world experiences. It’s kind of limiting, honestly.”
If I had to summarize my experience in the translation industry over the last couple of years, I would say that I was unexpectedly informed I have a new roommate. Whether I like them or not is irrelevant; the least I could do is get to know them and find ways for us to complement each other’s work.
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