Machine translations are often brought up as a gotcha whenever I criticize LLMs.
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@cstross @Gargron I have a friend who worked for years as a translator (English to French) but in recent years he found that he was no longer being asked to translate but to "post-edit" machine translations. It was taking him just as long, paying him less, and destroying his soul.
He now works as a tour guide.
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Machine translations are often brought up as a gotcha whenever I criticize LLMs. It's worth pointing out two things: Machine translations existed decades before LLMs, and yes, machine translations are useful. However: I would never in my life read a machine translated book. Understanding what a social media post is talking about in rough terms? Sure. Literature? Absolutely not. Hell, have you ever seen machine translated subtitles? It's absolute garbage.
@Gargron I'm pretty sure J.R.R. Tolkien would view LLM's as an abomination
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Machine translations are often brought up as a gotcha whenever I criticize LLMs. It's worth pointing out two things: Machine translations existed decades before LLMs, and yes, machine translations are useful. However: I would never in my life read a machine translated book. Understanding what a social media post is talking about in rough terms? Sure. Literature? Absolutely not. Hell, have you ever seen machine translated subtitles? It's absolute garbage.
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@qgustavor @aeva @Gargron Netflix does proper translations to bigger languages? I've by far watched their Watership Down, and the Finnish translation in subtitles was just awful, characters' names kept changing between episodes and translator confused Holly with Vervain several times. Hadn't I known source material and kept English audio, it would have been really hard to follow. So I just thought any Netflix-translation must be taken with grain of salt...
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@Gargron But it seems that LLMs are here to stay. This time, it doesn't seem to be just a passing fad. There is a lot of investment involved.
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@ainmosni @df @Gargron my take is: Investors will figure out it’s too expensive to be a viable business so big AI providers will fail, especially those who try to archive „general knowledge“ AI like OpenAI.
Small models will then be the focus, and integrating them on-device for AI assistance. Latest models, like Gwen 3.5-9b already show promising results and performance locally.
The question is who will invest in training small models to deploy on-device and will those models be open sourced? I hope they will. -
Technology is not inevitable. We've decided not to have asbestos in our walls, lead in our pipes, or carginogenic chemicals in our food. (If you're going to argue that it's not everywhere, where would you rather live?) We could just not do LLMs. It's allowed.
Sadly we're all gonna pay for them!
One way or another!
We must shun them as much as possible!
Have a good day!
Well mmmmm we think too hard. -
@ainmosni @df @Gargron my take is: Investors will figure out it’s too expensive to be a viable business so big AI providers will fail, especially those who try to archive „general knowledge“ AI like OpenAI.
Small models will then be the focus, and integrating them on-device for AI assistance. Latest models, like Gwen 3.5-9b already show promising results and performance locally.
The question is who will invest in training small models to deploy on-device and will those models be open sourced? I hope they will.@kevin @df @Gargron small models are well and good and hopefully will be focused on actually useful things, as I'm personally still not convinced that LLMs are really that useful at all, and are taking winds out of the sail out of other AI avenues that have been very useful, things that we would classify as machine learning.
But if we want general models... those might just take too many resources to build and I honestly think society will be better off with no new ones of those anyway, while letting stuff like ollama collect enough bitrot that it loses most of its damaging potential.
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@kevin @df @Gargron small models are well and good and hopefully will be focused on actually useful things, as I'm personally still not convinced that LLMs are really that useful at all, and are taking winds out of the sail out of other AI avenues that have been very useful, things that we would classify as machine learning.
But if we want general models... those might just take too many resources to build and I honestly think society will be better off with no new ones of those anyway, while letting stuff like ollama collect enough bitrot that it loses most of its damaging potential.
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Machine translations are often brought up as a gotcha whenever I criticize LLMs. It's worth pointing out two things: Machine translations existed decades before LLMs, and yes, machine translations are useful. However: I would never in my life read a machine translated book. Understanding what a social media post is talking about in rough terms? Sure. Literature? Absolutely not. Hell, have you ever seen machine translated subtitles? It's absolute garbage.
@Gargron circa 2000 I came to the conclusion to consider translated textbooks only when the translators name was mentioned on the title.
This came after the worst translation ever, that translated SQL commands in sample code
And back then it was all human, went downhill recently (though machines are useful for small snippets)
Never regretted this decision.
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Machine translations are often brought up as a gotcha whenever I criticize LLMs. It's worth pointing out two things: Machine translations existed decades before LLMs, and yes, machine translations are useful. However: I would never in my life read a machine translated book. Understanding what a social media post is talking about in rough terms? Sure. Literature? Absolutely not. Hell, have you ever seen machine translated subtitles? It's absolute garbage.
@Gargron safety of food ingredient translations went down like a rock when machine translation went over to llm. It's equally plausible for an ingredients list to contain or not contain an allergen, but only one is true.
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@Gargron
And on the other hand, Maths people have always been saying stay the hell away from it!
https://dotnet.social/@SmartmanApps/116000100388648367@SmartmanApps @Gargron unfortunately, not all of them.
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@VileLasagna @Gargron oh that’s probably John Ciardi’s translation
@maco @VileLasagna @Gargron oh, I would have assumed the Dorothy L Sayers translation. Good lord, are there two rhyming translations into English?
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@kevin @df @Gargron small models are well and good and hopefully will be focused on actually useful things, as I'm personally still not convinced that LLMs are really that useful at all, and are taking winds out of the sail out of other AI avenues that have been very useful, things that we would classify as machine learning.
But if we want general models... those might just take too many resources to build and I honestly think society will be better off with no new ones of those anyway, while letting stuff like ollama collect enough bitrot that it loses most of its damaging potential.
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From what I've observed, people who claim that LLMs can replace artists don't understand art, people who claim that they can replace musicians don't understand music, people who claim that they can replace writers don't understand literature, and people who claim they can replace translators don't rely on translations. If I had a button that would erase LLMs from the world but it would take machine translations away (which is a false dichotomy anyway), I would absolutely still press it.
@Gargron this!!
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From what I've observed, people who claim that LLMs can replace artists don't understand art, people who claim that they can replace musicians don't understand music, people who claim that they can replace writers don't understand literature, and people who claim they can replace translators don't rely on translations. If I had a button that would erase LLMs from the world but it would take machine translations away (which is a false dichotomy anyway), I would absolutely still press it.
That is absolutely correct if one refers to the essence of art.
Yet I would distinguish between art itself and the functional quality of artistic work: i.e. creative work in the service of capitalism. I believe this is where the displacement has already happened and continues to unfold.
Unfortunately, this kind of creative work puts food on the table for many artists and often enables the creation of art.
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From what I've observed, people who claim that LLMs can replace artists don't understand art, people who claim that they can replace musicians don't understand music, people who claim that they can replace writers don't understand literature, and people who claim they can replace translators don't rely on translations. If I had a button that would erase LLMs from the world but it would take machine translations away (which is a false dichotomy anyway), I would absolutely still press it.
@Gargron I completely agree with you on this—this lack of understanding is so bad. -
human, is fine. perfection is a scam sold by ponzi schemers who have no useful skill. second sons of the british empire looking for some purpose that makes daddy approve of their existence.
maybe... just maybe... talk to a human and ask them how you can help them, with your actual meat space body. then maybe you could find some meaning in life instead of trying to get techbros to think you are pretty.
There's also the problem of your essentialist thinking that decides only terrible human beings could find any value in LLMs, because use of LLMs is proof of same. QED. It's like thinking poor people must be morally bankrupt. It's a non-sequitur.
Anti-LLM posts quickly turns to deep pronouncements about the personality and motives of people who do things you don't like, not an honest discussion of the harms of the tech, because it's a purity test, not a position.
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That is absolutely correct if one refers to the essence of art.
Yet I would distinguish between art itself and the functional quality of artistic work: i.e. creative work in the service of capitalism. I believe this is where the displacement has already happened and continues to unfold.
Unfortunately, this kind of creative work puts food on the table for many artists and often enables the creation of art.
@AwetTesfaiesus Mixing something together from old content and then talking about intelligence—that's just nonsense. @Gargron -
From what I've observed, people who claim that LLMs can replace artists don't understand art, people who claim that they can replace musicians don't understand music, people who claim that they can replace writers don't understand literature, and people who claim they can replace translators don't rely on translations. If I had a button that would erase LLMs from the world but it would take machine translations away (which is a false dichotomy anyway), I would absolutely still press it.
I think the biggest difference is in the rate of change. At every step people are making eternal pronouncements of what LLMs can and can't do when it's a moving target.
I agree with you 100% about translation, it's an art. It's a great example. You can't simply replace one human translator with another, let alone a machine.
The difference is I would add "yet". Looking at the arc of LLMs over less than ten years, it doesn't seem an impossibility to me, it seems a likelihood.
