Pro Interpreters vs. AI Challenge: Who Translates Faster and Better? | WIRED

AI has been threatening everyone's jobs, and that includes translation. Professional interpreters Barry Slaughter Olsen and Walter Krochma take on an AI speech translator named Kudo to see how its translation compares to that of a human. Barry and Walter test the AI on its ability to translate not only the words being said, but the emotions.
Check out Barry's website: www.whataboutlanguage.com
Check out Walter's website: walterkrochmal.wixsite.com/vi...
Director: Katherine Wzorek
Director of Photography: Francis Bernal
Editor: Louville Moore
Expert: Barry Slaughter Olsen; Walter Krochma
Line Producer: Joseph Buscemi
Associate Producer: Brandon White; Kameryn Hamilton
Production Manager: Eric Martinez
Production Coordinator: Fernando Davila
Camera Operator: Jack Belisle
Gaffer: Alfonso
Audio: Brett Van Deusen
Post Production Supervisor: Alexa Deutsch
Post Production Coordinator: Ian Bryant
Supervising Editor: Doug Larsen
Assistant Editor: Courtney Karwal
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[@juliegolick]

I think, like the two interpreters were saying at the end, that the real boon is going to come for small businesses and social situations where you wouldn't otherwise have an interpreter at all. (Or perhaps just "Sally the bookkeeper who took a few years of high school French, but is the only one in the office who knows any French at all.") For high-level diplomatic stuff or high-stakes interactions, then I think professional human interpreters are still the way to go. But if you're on vacation and want to figure out how to get back to your hotel, this might be a good substitute.

[@andres3665]

Yeah, human interpreters will still have their jobs...for like a year.

[@ivojara]

@@andres3665 I am going to give you an example (And I am a professional interpreter), For years, airplanes have been able to take off, fly and land by themselves; also, air crashes today are mostly, (almost 100%) human error. However, if you are sitting on a plane and the door is open and the cabin personnel say the following "Ladies and gentlemen, this flight is totally automated and anyone who is not confortable with a flight without pilots can leave now", most of us will get off the plane. That AI did a beeter job than many of my colleagues, but the acceptance of the technology will take at least a decade. BTW, another example are today's subway systems, which are automated; ther is no engineer or conductor operating the trains and nobody seems to care. It's not the tech, it may be ready in 1, 2 or 5 years, but users will not trust it for a while. Also, some companies decided to spearhead this and tried when the tech was not really ready and it was a costly lesson (in the tune of millions of dollars due to errors). It will take some time for them to try again.

[@2manygamestoplay]

@@ivojara You are proving the point. If you go into the direction of translation/interpreting, newsflash, you're wasting your time because you'll be replaced either by the time you're done learning or a few years after. If you learn a language as your hobby or you want to move to another country, sure, go ahead.

[@ivojara]

@@2manygamestoplay I am 57 years old, and an interpreter, I will retire before being replaced.

[@ivojara]

@@andres3665 That is not the case, some of my customer have gone that route and came back, the problem is not the performance of the machines, the problem is the performance of the speakers, they are horrible aat speaking and the accents and poor grammar are very challenging for the machines.

[@mx.menacing]

I will always agree with the sentiment that AI is a tool and not a replacement.

[@nickamodio721]

for now...

[@andres3665]

@@nickamodio721 Exactly, this types of tecnology are improving, and very fast. Humans barely improve once they reach a certain point.

[@julien2231]

Lets make it short. He didnt interpret the video.

[@Extremoo]

😂

[@Andyblalock]

how can you say “always” when you have no idea what the future will be like.. now everything else you say is discredited

[@sefaemreilikli]

The issue with AI translating (not interpreting) well-written speeches is that it's just translating a perfect text that is recorded clearly and reading it out. As a conference interpreter, I encountered people who read their speeches out and the majority don't even listen because it's robotic and fast and too dense for the average listener to take in. It's not verbal communication. It's something for the press to analyze later usually. However, there are a lot of cases where people just speak normally and communicate their thoughts. Sentences break or things get repeated, there are idioms, jokes, moments where they can't be heard clearly because they don't speak to the microphone. This is where AI cannot function properly (at the moment), because a human is needed to understand what a human wants to convey. A human's life experience is needed to figure out what the problems or mistakes or jokes are. And interpret not just what is being said, but also how. Is the speaker cheerful? Where is the emphasis? Are they using silences in a certain way? What is their body language/facial expression saying? What is the context, what is happening in the world at that moment? What is the gravity of the situation? So AI may be able to _translate_ well, but interpreting is much more than just translating words.

[@blendedchaitea645]

I would love to see this with Japanese. Subjects get left out all the time, euphemism is everywhere, and social context is king. How would a computer do with that?

[@rasen7721]

it would simply fail miserably and either be nonsensical or very confidently wrong (actual j->e translator speaking)

[@xXBenutzer235Xx]

@@rasen7721 Most LLM AIs are trained on everyday conversations so I think it would do better than you might think. Its trained on exactly those euphemisms and casual speech. It will probably struggle more than with other languages but English also uses a lot of those things that make translation hard so I dont know if it would be that different.

[@Ghost-pb4ts]

like your brain does by algortihim emulating your brain neuroins 1000 of years of practice in mere weeks will leave us in dust i think current Ai age is like 3 year old but it will learn more and more

[@Ghost-pb4ts]

@@rasen7721 my question go way over my friends brain either because they don't get it or i don't explain it properly chat gpt 4 is like 10x more smarter than my friends in communication

[@Lena-cz6re]

Not

[@TheOneCleanHippy]

I'm an American living in China. AI-powered translation apps have made my life significantly easier. That being said, there is a reason why they did this with English/Spanish. When you start doing harder or more significantly different languages like Chinese to English or lesser known languages like Estonian to Navajo, the quality of the translation takes a nosedive. It will continue to get better and better very quickly but it isn't quite there yet, especially when you get into metaphorical language or idioms.

[@BohdanMelnychuk]

Yeah enes is arguably the best pair when it comes to machine translation, probably because the US where the tech is mostly made is basically one of the biggest Spanish speaking countries in the world.

[@xondragrafia]

Americans will accept any trash translation if that means they don't have to pay a human for their service.

[@rainbowsixODST]

The US and ISAF forces would have killed for this tech in Afghanistan and Iraq. So many situations where this could have been useful. Hopefully this becomes common tech for everyone soon.

[@k8giggles]

This was just Spanish to English, which given Kudo's location (NYC), makes sense. I'd be curious how it would do with Nepali to French, or really any two languages that are not super common to the country where Kudo was created.

[@Lena-cz6re]

or to Finnish

[@MountainTopVisionLi]

African varieties of international languages too: French, English, Portuguese...

[@Robert53area]

They are all horrible at translating russian. We as professionals translators have practice and we laugh at the inability to translate basic sentences. The best one we have seen is yandex auto translator.

[@fractal_gate]

The AI would do worse...much worse.

[@1.4142]

The risk is too high in diplomatic negotiations, and a human needs to make sure it is correct.

Also A.I. can be manipulated in some ways I think. So a human correction will always be needed.

[@susanne5803]

​@Humans can be manipulated, too ...

@@susanne5803 You are right but what I meant by that was changing the A.I. in some way that can change the meaning a bit and it can cause problems.

[@prime12602]

@@susanne5803can be" nah uh they're manipulated all the time.

[@Ghost-pb4ts]

@@susanne5803 human mistake

[@NinjaElephant]

I‘m a pediatric neurosurgeon in Austria where we treat a lot of Ukrainian refugees for a year now and google translate completely changed the interaction. If somebody brings a medical report I can just take a picture and instantly read the complete page, I don’t need emotions or the correct word choosing for that and it is way faster than interpreters. On the other hand, when talking with patients about surgery and prognosis I really like interpreters since patients tend to ask more questions than with a program. Tablet video interpreters are a blessing where before we had to make an appointment. But to be honest most interpreters are not as world class as these two.

[@irinagolovina7380]

Being a pro medical interpreter+translator I've had a few instances of veeery serious Google translation mistakes. I do hope you double check at least the more important bits affecting the medical decisions to be made...

[@ginnymichelleperezquiterio3239]

I have seen veeery serious Google Translate mistakes in different types of translations, medical among them, some not really hard, so I don't trust it and I don't recommend it.

[@nataliesmelkova6694]

There is St Jude Global interpreting charity that translates Ukrainian refugees medical papers free of charge

[@GioLester]

Google Translate may be great to give anyone an idea of the subject in a document, not necessarily the details. And, definitely, interpreters add more to the mix.

[@NinjaElephant]

@@GioLester in my experience it is the opposite. I have a rough outline of the story by basic communication but sometimes I need specific implant or other surgical details which can by especially hard to trace when letters are written in cyrillic. I had interpreters asking to end the conversation because their medical English wasn’t profound enough - one mother once asked about a specific type of glue in an arterial embolization process. I understand that interpreters are a great and viable option on paper but google translate proved to be a reliable option in my everyday practice.

[@rebekah4761]

1:40 he seemed to gloss over the fact that the screen shows that 1020 as the year it picked out of the speech.

[@BusketPosket]

This was an amazing video! I hope you show the strengths/weaknesses with translating lesser-spoken or grammatically complex languages, or even explore whether AI is to the point where signed languages can have the same level of interpretation (or, if not, why the heck not?) As a linguist, I worry about tech bros and popsci blogs running with this notion that language is a static and fully observable thing that you can pop out of one mouth, run through an algorithm, then pop it whole-cloth into someone else’s eyes or ears. So much of communication is metalinguistic, and we barely understand the mechanisms ourselves. It’s a black-box programming a black-box.

[@polyglotava6443]

I believe the true potential will be realized when we, as interpreters, can leverage AI to enhance our interpretation. If the AI can precisely identify all complex terminology for me, it would free up cognitive resources, allowing me to make on-the-spot decisions to either trust the AI or opt for a more suitable phrasing during human interpretation.

[@dumbahhperson]

What would it need you for? You could train it on situations the same way you train a human. And once trained it will make far less mistakes than a human.

[@shakur07]

​@@dumbahhpersonAnd it will replace him by the way

[@ivojara]

The pore you use it , the more you train it. ;)

[@ShieldYoung]

Interpretation is translation of emotions rather than words

[@millie9814]

Yes!!

[@nigeh5326]

I’m English and speak a little French. I find the ability to speak and think in multiple languages fluently amazing. At university in the nineties I had a Portuguese friend called Cristina who obviously spoke Portuguese, English, Spanish , French, German and Italian fluently. She also decided to learn Croatian for fun in her spare time as well as gaining a first in Politics. Some people are so naturally gifted I envy them.

[@beberselasnubes]

There are not gifted people, only people with interests and dedication

[@irinagolovina7380]

Great overview! Would've loved to hear the full records of original speech, interpreters' and AI's interpretation to get a better idea though. Do you plan to publish it at some point?

[@gentleken7864]

As a speaker of Korean, I can tell you that AI and online translators will never be as good as people for translating Korean into English perfectly. As a teacher here, I can tell when a student has used Papago (the most popular translation app/website). It has terrible trouble with subject pronouns because they are not always written in Korean so it guesses what the subject may be and mixes them up in sentences. Also given that, like other languages, there may not be a direct translation between phrases and words, meaning it can make a mistake with them too. At the moment, it's about 70% effective, but that 30% means that it's very obvious when someone has used a translator.

[@jeff__w]

That’s true but I think the latest technology (which I’m not sure that either Papago _or_ Kudo employs) handles the dropped pronouns _better_ (but not perfectly) because it can account for the _context_ better (as people do). (Of course, if there is _no_ context, it might make a guess, which could easily be wrong-but people would do that, too.) And, for those instances where there might not be a direct translation, these large language models, with billions of text examples, including correspondences between Korean and English, can _probably_ come up with something that some actual human interpreter or translator has employed before. That doesn’t mean that these LLMs _will_ be as good as people at translating Korean into English but probably the 30% gap will get much narrower.

[@tyronew5464]

I translated your comment into Korean using GPT-4, how did it do? 한국어를 구사하는 사람으로서 AI와 온라인 번역기가 한국어를 영어로 완벽하게 번역하는 데에 사람만큼 좋을 수 없다는 것을 말해 드릴 수 있습니다. 여기서 교사로서, 학생이 파파고(가장 인기 있는 번역 앱/웹사이트)를 사용했을 때 알 수 있습니다. 그것은 주어 대명사에 대해 큰 문제를 가지고 있는데, 이는 그것들이 항상 한국어로 작성되지 않기 때문에 그것이 주제가 될 수 있는 것을 추측하고 문장에서 섞어버립니다. 또한 다른 언어처럼, 문구와 단어 사이에 직접적인 번역이 없을 수 있어, 그것은 그것들에 대한 실수를 범할 수도 있음을 의미합니다. 현재로서는 대략 70%의 효율성을 가지고 있지만, 그 30%는 누군가가 번역기를 사용했을 때 매우 눈에 띄게 만듭니다.

[@Ghost-pb4ts]

but like in what time frame 5 year 10 year or 50 year i think in a decade you would be fooled by whos human or Ai so you're dead wrong

[@sa1t938]

@@tyronew5464 I translated it back using GPT 4 lol As a Korean speaker, I can tell you that AI and online translators cannot translate Korean into English as well as a human can. Here, as a teacher, you can tell when a student has used Papago (the most popular translation app/website). It has a big problem with subject pronouns, as they are not always written in Korean, so it guesses what can be the subject and mixes it up in the sentence. Also, like other languages, there may be no direct translation between phrases and words, which means it can make mistakes with them. Currently, it has about 70% efficiency, but that 30% makes it very noticeable when someone has used a translator. at the very least, its good at doing GPT 4 korean to english lol

[@marco2771]

Never say never

[@InsideInterpreting]

A great and well-informed video (although professional conference interpreting started in 1919, not Nuremberg). The final analysis is spot on. AI interpreting is going to widen access to interpreting and might help professionals but it is not even nearly a replacement and, based on current algorithms, cannot be one.

[@peterchin7796]

as a professional interpreter, I actually look forward on how AI can help me do better at my job

[@shakur07]

And replace you by the way

[@andrewsjones2753]

@@shakur07 HAHAHAHAHHA nice one.

[@ayanaj1006]

Barry, this is brilliant, am going to share! Bravo!!

[@glossaria2]

I'd love to see how Barry would do on the speed test speech if he had Kudo's running translation in front of him *while* he did his translation. I'd be curious to see if it would help, or simply be a distraction.

[@ivojara]

I am an interpreter, for me, even my colleague wrting down somewthing on a paper pad beside me is a distraction, I can cope, however when the speed is ove 150 words per minute, I just need to "zone out" and match the speaker mentally, remove all the repetitions and then follow the speaker. It is a lot easier form spanish to english because of the amount of words BTW. 😉

[@user-oo5or3xg2x]

Interpreters will survive since someone will have to bear the responsibility when something goes wrong, and that's also probably the promoting mechanism that lies in the interprting circle.

[@shakur07]

And interpreters will be less needed

[@davidrubio.24]

It's not yet there, but its a matter of time.

[@daserdo28]

What headset is Barry, the 1st interpreter, wearing?

[@susanamurcia619]

Human tone and Psycho would never be replaced by IA.

[@treezydcm]

Excellent segment I worked as translator of 19c documents in the past and I wonder what would ai do. Google translate was and isn't accurate enough in professional circles or environments. I'd love a segment focusing on translation of medieval, early modern, and 19c, pleasssssssse.

[@shakur07]

Google translate is not AI, chatgpt is

[@treezydcm]

Yes, I'm aware of that. Like that's obvious and widely known I'd say. Google Translate is not that good with complex language or historical documents So I wonder how AI translates in comparison. That's the meaning of my question :) @@shakur07

[@AbrahamRomney]

is the version of Kudo they're using when the video was made actually using AI, or is it just doing machine translation?

[@i_marcus_quintus]

People will always prefer a human's mistake over a computer's.

[@Ghost-pb4ts]

wait 5 to 10 years you wont even know whos human

[@shakur07]

​@@Ghost-pb4tsI give it 2 years

[@SpanishInterpreter2864]

Great job guy's..

[@phanybarrios]

Thank you for this video!

[@ankitb3954]

7:20 Perfectly explained

[@sock1]

this video was posted like 3 minutes ago lol

[@ankitb3954]

@@sock1 Used GPT to give the gist with timestamps skipping out all the redundant parts of the video.

[@eldaroo]

​@@ankitb3954how do you timestamp a video with GPT? 😮

[@lugh.i]

​@@sock1Remember you can watch videos at x1.5 and x2.0 speed. There are some extensions/add-ons which let you go x3 and beyond. He could've simply skipped or watched at x2.

[@sock1]

@@lugh.i i know lol but it doesnt make sense that they skipped more than half of the video or put it on 2x, either way they wouldnt have understood anything. and they didnt do neither of those things anyway lol they used ai to give the general idea or smth

[@JimLeonard]

Well, AI certainly helped summarize this video faster than watching it: "AI speech translation can be useful in informal situations with low consequences for mistakes. However, for critical and high-stakes scenarios like courtrooms, medical interactions, and diplomatic negotiations, human interpreters remain essential due to their ability to process complex nuances, metaphorical language, and ensure accurate communication."

[@jobroray]

This was the first time I’ve seen professionals actually criticize AI instead of steadfastly rejecting the idea AI could replace them in any capacity.

[@TheRafaelRamos]

AI's always lack the most important thing about us. Humanity

[@Ghost-pb4ts]

BS you know even today many humans prefer Aivtubers instead of humans

[@shakur07]

Naive

[@marianatraductoraargentina]

as an interpreter myself, i agree with the profesionals on this interview

[@passatboi]

Why didn’t they give it something with terrible grammar or a heavy accent or proper nouns or toponyms?

[@ak5659]

It'd be interesting to see how A.I. handles speakers of non standard dialects, accents, and people who have disturbances in their language production ex. TBI, a stroke, or Language Deprivation Syndrome.

[@mrherobrine_15]

underrated...

[@vEnnzzoo]

2:04 The way he pronounces the "h" reminds me of Stewie

[@Bora1333]

Companies have got stuff cookin in their kitchens that are gonna improve on this significantly in a year or two

[@liangzx]

so far theres no AI that can cover all languages well, so translator and intepreter still stay

[@wsanchezjrhuskies]

It would be cool to just have an AI tool that provides real-time accurate subtitles of what of what is being said! No more need to take notes!

[@PearlPaisley]

I would really have wanted to see the human translator performing the translation of the last (fast) speech. We were getting like 3 seconds. Too bad!

[@Lena-cz6re]

AI still routinely struggles with and comes up with nonsense sequences for more synthetic languages or languages with a more complex sentence structure. It would be nice to finally see at least one study that is not done on English or Spanish.

[@TheAutotroph]

listening to this as a data scientist student ✍🏽✍🏽

[@InsideInterpreting]

I highly recommend the book Interpreters vs Machines, (Routledge, 2019).

[@ivojara]

Then, take a look at the FMRIs of interpreters while they are working and compare them with FMRIs of normal people speaking. And yes, I said "normal people", the brains of interpreters are being studied in several universities because they light up as christmas trees when working. I took part in one of those studies and the data will be very surprising for you.

[@followmesky]

Interesting. Can you share the study ?

[@tommyhuffman7499]

Give it a few years, and it will be better than a human.

[@RogerRamos1993]

10 years ago, AI translation was trash. Now, it is good for a series of uses. Let's see what happens in the next 5 years. Oh, and ChatGPT is great for translating texts at light speed. When it comes to texts, the best translators will become revisors. The others will have to look for another job.

[@jchangaus]

Poor Olsen, Barry slaughtered them.

[@Pilot_the_Dune]

This was 5 months ago. AI has boomed since then. We get AI phone calls now.

[@BigGroupHug]

Illuminating

[@Larry21924]

This is nothing short of extraordinary. I recently stumbled upon similar material, and it was breathtaking. "Game Theory and the Pursuit of Algorithmic Fairness" by Jack Frostwell

[@-F4K3-]

Give it 5 years, these minor details and nuances will be smoothed over. I mean lets be honest, with the translation tools already in place pre-a.i-- it will only get better

[@jemmakhachatryan1]

Maybe not in 10 days or 10 months, but AI will gradually take some functions of our jobs some day.

[@qylv5138]

As a graduate student majoring conference interpreting, I would say AI will replace most average interpreters because machines can do a much better job of understanding foreign languages, terminologies, accents, and so on. Imagine what will happen in the future since AI tools nowadays are not fully trained in all languages and specifically adapted for translation.

[@studgerbil9081]

The bigger concern is knowing whether it's AI or human, not the translation per se. If the intended listeners do not know, that could be an issue. We are used to being deceived by public speakers already, but this makes it doubly bad, whether it's a speech, news article, photograph or video. AI is indeed a tool, and any tool will always be used by those in power to gain more control. This has always been the case.

[@allyrichards9207]

They are not very accurate and become less accurate with regional accents and dialects

[@Diego96_x]

A.I can sure do the job but you want to hear emotion and feeling, something A.I can't match at all.

[@shakur07]

For the moment

[@bboyenzoIL]

Dude name is Slaughter

[@meowverwhelmed1373]

It shpuld be called Artificial Stupidity.

[@GambinoTheGoat]

interesting

[@nerd26373]

This channel will always be the best. We will support them no matter what.

[@nnaaa55d]

Is that nana on your pfp

[@SchgurmTewehr]

Why do you sind like trolls, and who is we?

[@aryangod2003]

I propose a TURING challenge. If for a pair of language most humans cannot tell the difference between AI and human translation..whether it is speech to speech or document..then AI has won. AI should be used in MOST situations for translation.

[@JohnLewis-old]

Kudo uses software that translates in real time and is backed up my human translators. AI has not tackled real time translation, however, and if you wanted to reassure people that "AI isn't coming for your jobs", this would be an ideal test. Translation tasks for documents and text are already giving way to AI Large Language Models, like ChatGPT. They are very accurate for this task and extremely fast. It will not be a long time before LLMs can handle the speed requirements for real time translation, but it's dishonest to use this as the benchmark. It's an extremely small segment of the translation business market. Wired should have done better.

[@devlinlewis9507]

Yeah there isn't really a threat to translators and interpreters because they lack the human element, they translate everything when you don't need every part of the sentence. Your whole job as an interpreter is to carry the essence of a sentence/message and make it understandable to the listener, cutting out unnecessary words but still retaining the core message/idea. And obviously the tone and emotion is difficult for an A.I to emulate accurately 100% of the time since it can't understand emotions like a human. Half the meaning of what you say is based solely on tone and facial expressions, that is how you know if someone is asking you or telling you to do something. It is a very helpful tool and can aid translators/interpreters but in most situations, it is not a complete replacement.

[@shakur07]

Aha, and you think that AI will stay the same forever? What will happen when the AI be able to carry those emotions?

[@MikeTyson-pl1qm]

this colombian president is fun

[@christianbarillas4013]

just remeber that tecnology is advancing ...

[@morqesahar]

It is strange to me that Barry considers AI good enough for asylum cases that are also very important in terms of the life of the asylee hanging in the balance where a misunderstanding can get their case rejected.

[@jonr4164]

A.I is going to end up heavily influenced by opinion not fact. Give it time you will see. The whole world is running on opinions and no longer facts. It will follow the pattern/notion that the most noise and more popular thinking, will dominate the algorithms. Over time it will become more inaccurate, more diluted and require more maintenance through editing and refining by humans to counter balance this trend.

[@baconsky1625]

Remember 2017? "Ai will never be able to translate language to an useful level" - almost every translator. 2023 - "it will never be able to translate the sentiment". 2025 - AI can translate at least as good as the best of us

[@shakur07]

They just talk about the now and not the evolution, they point out mistake and they think that will remain the same forever

[@ProjectElf]

The real question is why is that guy speaking so fast in the first place

[@MountainTopVisionLi]

Some languages are just spoken like that. It's up to the speaker to consider the context and the role of interpreters to slow down to make their job easy.

[@MountainTopVisionLi]

If interpreters would only translate words, most meetings wouldn't come to expected conclusions. Interpretation goes beyond words

[@carkawalakhatulistiwa]

Great news. 💥Ai replace translater in anime industry

[@davediaz1742]

Dwight v Dunder Mifflin Infinity

[@toucansam3217]

AI won't be able to INTERPRET jokes, figures of speech, jargon, some technical language/terms, and emotions

[@astroch]

Yet

[@DuranmanX]

Just like me fr

[@muftkuseng5924]

Nah, chatgpt is already able to explain jokes. Some tests where made where it was even able to explain memes and what the joke is

[@L3uX]

Some can definitely catch subtleness. But regardless, it will 100%, soon.

[@vitorprocopio6796]

This is only time for this…it learned the hardest before

[@amym9278]

Exactly. For higher standards and higher important cases(e.g, diplomat, business), should never use AI . Because AI will never have human sense about complicated thinking

[@benjoe999]

Not perfect,but are we?

[@concernedcitizen5988]

AI will never be able to be smarter than the user providing the input into it

[@Anna13Tonks]

that's the thing. it will be faster, more productive, but never more complex in thought.

[@Ghost-pb4ts]

user providing the input into= internet

[@DelonSerinoVlogs]

In the human's closing statements, that's what a boomer would say. For balance and fairness, you should also have had the AI explain their thoughts as well.

[@ashemedai]

AI has no thoughts.

[@Ghost-pb4ts]

there would never be a human transater 2.0 but there would hundreds of versions of machine translation in the future (which would inevitably beat the humans)

[@thelearningmachine5740]

So far I rather the real life translator than AI🤷🏽‍♂️ I can't connect with AI emotionally. And the speech of the president of El Salvador was pre-recorded and made faster during the editing process. So not fair to the real life translator.

[@christianbarillas4013]

chatgpt 4o is wining 😅

[@aaaaeeeeooouuuu]

ii

[@Pigbot5K]

its off-putting to hear the AI take short breaths while talking.

[@Jumpyfoot]

I would be curious to duplicate this experiment with a better translation AI. Does anyone happen to know the best AI for translating in a human-like way right now?

[@daniel_960_]

ChatGPT But it's only text.

[@x_apollyon2822]

DeepL is what i use as an interpreter for backup. Although I don't think it does speech yet. It's written, but it's by far the most accurate one I've used.

[@andres3665]

@@daniel_960_ ChatGPT with text to speech can definetly do a better job, but it is slow.

[@barboratite]

:D There is no better speech-to-speech simultaneous tool right now - maybe there are comparable ones developed by KUDO's competitors in the industry but there certainly isn't something a lot better hiding somewhere where we forgot to look. The landscape is pretty small. All the other stuff is text-to-text or much slower, as in NOT simultaneous like you see in the video. Also, this tool is def not free like DeepL et al., it is paid (and probably costly at that, not your regular $20/month subscription thing).

[@Anna13Tonks]

@@x_apollyon2822 "interpreter" means spoken word. DeepL is the best for translation

[@c.f.3503]

First

[@amicaaranearum]

Where the AI seems to suffer the most is prosody. The AI interpretation of King Felipe’s speech does not sound compassionate or reassuring; it’s actually a little _unnerving_ to listen to.

[@twntwrs]

Which, ironically, makes it more accurate since Felipe's compassion and reassurance is a put-on as befits a parasitic unelected aristocrat (son of an elephant hunter appointed by Franco who revived the monarchy) steeped in privilege for whom "his" people's suffering is an abstraction that he'll never experience.

[@pattoneill2402]

Hmmmm. AI's are basically bureaucrats -- unemotional, literal, robotic and intrinsically sociopathic. I hate videos that are AI narrated. Some of it is just awful.

[@MrYatesj1]

I am so happy that most people are excepting blindly how “wonderfully” AI can do the jobs of human life. I applaud you sheeple for your “open mindedness”. That is all.

[@carensimon4236]

Sorry...not buying this, even 6 mos ago - this is very old tech being demonstrated. The latest publicly available LLM technology will easily do better than humans. And certainly AI wins in non-realtime interpretations, simply due to the amount of material it can interpret, in addition to the quality. Not only can current tech perform the translations, but there are apps that can actually seamlessly replace the foreign speakers mouth movements, and body language, so that the speaker appears and sounds like they are personally speaking in the target language. Sadly, it's only wishful thinking that humans will continue to be needed for interpretation once people get comfortable with the new tech.

[@shakur07]

They don't get it, and they got the least advanced AI to perform this test. I think that a lot of people are so afraid of this themed that they don't want to see the potential that AI has, they think that it will remain the same when they point out a simple mistake, AI always evolves.

[@infrancopersonaltraining6231]

AI may not be 100% ready but the fact that it’s already basically good enough and that it’s rapidly getting better tells me that nobody’s job is safe 😭

[@schrodingerskatze4308]

But the point of this video was, that it's not good enough for most purposes. It get's the denotation of the words right, but struggles with everything else. So you can use it in informal contexts when there are no big consequences, like when you're talking to an exchange student and struggle with the language. But otherwise, it can only maybe be used one day to assist human interpreters, but it really doesn't look like it can ever replace them.

[@infrancopersonaltraining6231]

@@schrodingerskatze4308 Im aware. Like I said in my comment, it’s still not 100% ready. This technology is only getting better so I wouldn’t be surprised if it does eventually replace interpreters. Nobody really knows how long that will take though. 10 years, 50, 100.. idk

[@schrodingerskatze4308]

@@infrancopersonaltraining6231 Not anywhere in the near future, if at all. It can barely do anything well, even if it gets a lot better, it still wouldn't be able to get it done as well as humans. To reach that, it would have to get some very good understanding of things like intonation, emotion, culture or connotations. Just to name a few examples. But at the moment it sometimes even gets grammar wrong sometimes and messes up completely when the speaker makes a pause in the middle of their sentence. It's just not realistic that we would see it replace humans. Certainly not during our lifetime.

[@infrancopersonaltraining6231]

@@schrodingerskatze4308 I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what happens

[@Ghost-pb4ts]

@@schrodingerskatze4308 yeah but it can train for 1000 of years in a week duration and 1000s of bot will learns and get better by seconds we humans cant do that

[@feelin_fine]

Let AI interpret Trump

[@jenm1]

The mic on this video is so gross. It's like asmr

[@sock1]

Considering AI only got threateningly better in the past few years, it will only exponentially better and better as we use AI to make better AI and so on

[@InsideInterpreting]

Using AI to improve AI makes it worse.

[@sock1]

@@InsideInterpreting Whats your logic behind that? its not like it gives birth to something half his intelligence or something. If used right (like in the past years) it will only get better and better

[@allyrichards9207]

The problem with AI is that No one is talking continuous quality checks and once implemented, corporate doesn’t want to invest in quality or needed upgrades

[@steech193]

Wrong. Many corporations who are investing in AI are adding humans in the loop for pre- and post-editing and QA checks.

[@Hahahahaaahaahaa]

"AI has been threatening everyone's jobs" Literally no it hasn't what kind of weird Fox News headline is this.

[@mx.menacing]

Timestamp?

[@andres3665]

it hasn't, but it will.

[@steech193]

Literally yes.

[@Anna13Tonks]

I know 🤦‍♀

[@mydogisbailey]

though i love learning foreign languages, unfortunately i dont think there is a future for the professions of translation and interpretation. thats not to say demand will be zero or they they will never be needed, I just think AI being 80-90% as good as a human is enough to decrease the demand for these professions massively. and lets also not pretend like human interpreters are flawless either. if AI makes mistakes, it would be foolish to think humans don't.

[@imicca]

AI is danger, AI should be regulated

[@GrumpDog]

Doesn't seem like they're using the best AI translator available.. Also, this video just focuses on pretty much the LAST places of the puzzle, which AI is struggling, in this regard.. In a year or 2, or maybe 5, either way, these problems WILL be solved.. Then what?

[@shakur07]

Just look at Samsung S24 or AI PIN

[@Jon-bt4zv]

Doesn't seem fair to me when the same pro interpreter evaluates the AI results.

[@TR-qu9ty]

Sure, because why would he be able to do so as a PROFESSIONAL?

[@twntwrs]

@@TR-qu9ty vested interest much?

[@dmp7252]

He was pretty honest. He even said that, in certain aspects, the A.I. did a better job than he did.

[@jessicachristine4602]

Yeah let's hear the AI opinion of the pro translator! Both sides! Both sides!

[@falklumo]

Why not compare against chatGPT, nobody cares about KUDO at this moment in time! I tried it and chatGPT seemed to do a MUCH better job. E.g., it translated: "They confronted the initial onslaught of the virus in extreme situations, including overwhelming moments in some of our hospitals". I.e., "overwhelming moments" rather than "overflow" which KUDO came up with. Etc.pp. I did the whole translation and it transferred the emotions correctly as far as I can tell. So again: Why didn't WIRED compare against the state of the art in AI, or at least replaced "AI" by "KUDO" in the title? As it stands, this is clickbait journalism, I am sorry to say!!

[@Anna13Tonks]

because ChatGPT is a different kind of technology and is not interpreting. you should research a bit more before sounding so confident

[@falklumo]

@@Anna13Tonks the research is on you. chatgpt can be easily integrated into a complete interpreter.

[@shakur07]

​@@Anna13TonksChatGPT is able to interpret, research a bit more

[@margarita8442]

he will show emotion when he translates "your all fired due to AI"

[@AndreaAustoni]

Your comment includes a horrible grammar mistake. See what happens when you rely on machines instead of learning?

[@margarita8442]

@@AndreaAustoni you are ? I am romanian darlinks

[@jopo7996]

Hopefully, he can interpret the phrase 'Your services are no longer required' in multiple languages.

[@Lord_Horker]

If AI is threatening your job it wasn’t very important to begin with

[@steech193]

What a pathetically ridiculous comment, thanks for sharing your ignorance with the world.

[@JzL4ShzL]

Despite what people put on their resumes or LinkedIn profiles, 99.9% of jobs aren't very important. That's why wage stagnation has been going on for decades, yet is still a huge portion of the cost of products and services. And yet, if no one had any income capitalism would collapse without the consumers.

[@Lord_Horker]

@@JzL4ShzL What a fun house of cards we live in lol