Re: language abuse and machine translation

From: Alfio Puglisi (puglisi@arcetri.astro.it)
Date: Sat Mar 08 2003 - 04:49:04 MST

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    On Fri, 7 Mar 2003, spike66 wrote:

    >In this forum I have decried the practice of
    >nonstandard language use for the reason that
    >soon now machines will be advanced enough to
    >do realtime translations using speech recognition
    >and a simple sort of table-lookup style
    >substitution. The overuse of obscure allusions
    >and verbing, among other language bad habits,
    >will delay practical machine translation, as
    >well as interfere with machines' ability to
    >understand humans.
    >
    >[...]
    >
    >We need newspeak. Before it's too late.

    I'm not going to dumb down my language for the programmers' inability to
    understand it (I'm a programmer). Screw the stupid machines that we
    have now, and invent new, richer, different forms of speech. Mix them,
    like it's already happening between English and local languages, and use
    them freely.

    Computers, for now, are merely a tool. A tool's job is to help his owner,
    not to restrict his freedom. A program must meet some requirements before
    granted the "human-level intelligence" medal. Excellent speech recognition
    and understanding are a given. And I would expect it to be much better
    than us at moving between languages and inventing new ones.

    Ciao,
    Alfio



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