High-fidelity simultaneous speech-to-speech translation

This is why I wonder about the value of language learning for reasons other than “I’m really passionate about it.”

We are so close to interfaces that reduce the language barrier by a lot…

What about brain development and general intelligence. Knowledge will always have a value, or else we become slaves to the machine.

Well if you take a look ... at the Multistream Visualization examples provided in the demo page, it's jus ... t the same as existing human provided interpretation solution at best. Constant 3-5s delays, random pauses, and likely lots of omissions here and there to absorb differences in sentence structures. I'd argue this only nullified another one of excuses to not learn a language.

It's not personal but I can't help myself to think that's such a sad post here. Reducing learning a different culture through language by plugging in an earbud. Is the battery is gone or your phone is stolen you realize you can't automate anything and that you've learned nothing. It's not about the tech if it works it's amazing it's like babelfish but it's so shallow to assume everything has some direct and simple "value" that can be replaced by some machine or even better some paid service. It's so common here. Is this an US thing?

It's a much older theme, going all the way back to the Biblical legend of the Tower of Babel (hence the name of the fish.) Like most of that material, the Babel myth was probably stolen from the Babylonians or even older cultures.

The powers that be -- whether gods or governors -- tend to feel threatened when people can communicate freely with each other. Don't join their side.

I think you misunderstood my post. It's wonderful technology and a great aid. I just wanted to say there is so much more to learning a foreign language (and culture) than machine translation - even if almost perfect. At least that was my take away from learning Czech as a German. Lot's of subtle details.

I don't know if you're multilingual, but some concepts are just legitimately easier to express in some languages; and the different grammatical structures that languages have can be useful for emphasising certain things, or to express subtle relationships between concepts.

I'm not a particularly fluent speaker of Japanese and Russian, but I still find it helpful to drop into them sometimes when speaking with someone who understands them.

No, I was making a larger point: there shouldn't be any such thing as a "foreign language." We're all members of the same species. (Yes, even Americans.) Technology like this is what will realize that ideal.

If cultures around the world had all grown up alongside each other, speaking the same language, and someone came along and said, "That's no good, every nation and every ethnic group should speak a different language," we wouldn't rush to embrace that point of view, would we? Who would benefit from such a policy? Certainly not you and me.

Change is hard, but diversity is good, and certainly better than monoculture (of language).

Ah I see. I disagree because it's impossible. Even the next village or town has a different language even if it's subtle. I'm more for embracing the differences.

On the other hand we are probably almost there - it's English and social media is the global teacher.

I have to second this. I study Japanese myself and the entire way the Japanese communicate is reflected so deeply in the language. There is so so much nuance to pretty much every sentence they speak and there are certain grammar points that carry more meaning in three syllables than what can be expressed in English or German in a full sentence. And ok turn this way of communicating shapes their culture too I believe. If I were to translate a German conversation into Japanese, even if I did so idiomatically it would most likely come off as a rude exchange, because of all the unapologetic directness in the source language.

What's the point of diversity if people can't communicate with each other, or if only educated elites within each subculture can do so? Diversity should bring different people together, not divide them artificially.

So many nuances are lost in translation. I also can't imagine speaking English with actual people through a machine instead of speaking it directly.

I think it'll greatly increase cultural learning, by increasing the opportunity to interact with people. I've traveled to a lot of countries, and never learned more than a handful of words in each, primarily related to basic service interactions. I enjoyed talking to locals when they spoke English. I couldn't interact in any meaningful way with the vast majority of people, though.

Learning languages is great. If you can become fluent in two that's impressive. Even simple conversational ability in a few languages is impressive. But it's a big world.

Thanks. Wonderful take and optimistic. You are correct I think.

I’ve tried to learn Mandarin and failed because of lack of memory and practice. mostly i’m shocked at how ambiguous it appears to an english-trained mind - you have to fill in a lot of fine article/pronoun detail from custom and common understanding. which is why i think a lot of automatic translations are poor.

He's not, because those locals will stop being able to speak English in a few generations. Either you'll have battery and signal or you'll point at things and make monkey noises.

Well, the value is obvious for romantically involved people not sharing a language, when the batteries run empty. :)

I think you’re reading a sense of cultural reductionism in my comment that I didn’t intend.

There’s more to learning a culture than the language. And having a real-time translator makes it possible to enjoy a huge range of cultures much more directly than before. The fact is, I’m not going to learn Chinese and Swahili and Japanese. So my choices are to go through a human translator or nothing if I want to talk to those people.

How is it sad that a technology is going to allow me to directly talk to a huge number of people that I never could have before?

The irony here, is that diversity is actually extremely aligned with conservative values: freedom of expression and the ability to do what one wants (without regard to others).

Freedom of diversity allows for the flourishing of unique ideas and perspectives, which in turn, has many benefits, in terms of the creation of new value in unexpected ways. Diversity, in a sense, can be a synonym for independence and freedom.

What do we care what happens in a few generations? We'll all be dead, and the people alive will probably have universal translators implanted in their brains at birth. We absolutely won't need a "signal" to translate on a device anymore (that'll happen in just a few years, forget about generations), and there won't be anyplace on the entire planet that doesn't have network connectivity (that will also happen in just a few years; it's already reality with Starlink cellular).