Translating Akkadian clay tablets with ChatGPT?

Re:Translating Akkadian clay tablets with ChatGPT? by namaria on Tuesday May 16, 2023 @03:57AM (#35958846)

I worked for years as a translator (PT/EN). I hated 'just correcting' bad translations, from software or people bad at it. I cannot figure out why anyone would think generating half baked text or code with some generic tool and then have to parse it, identify errors and correct it would be preferable to just doing it right yourself. It's much less pleasant work.

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Re:Translating Akkadian clay tablets with ChatGPT? by dr_dshiv on Tuesday May 16, 2023 @05:56AM (#35959633)

I’ve been working with a professional Latin translator and encouraging her to use GPT4. She gagged, said it would be more work and against professional ethics.

Still, I’ve been able to use GPT4 to read Latin fluently… and I often find it’s translations to be more readable. It here is an insane amount of untranslated Latin—and now I don’t have to pay 8k just to read a book.

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Re:Translating Akkadian clay tablets with ChatGPT? by namaria on Tuesday May 16, 2023 @06:09AM (#35959736)

I'd rather have access to less text that I know to be right then a lot that might be wrong in subtle ways I cannot detect.

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Re:Translating Akkadian clay tablets with ChatGPT? by kenjackson on Tuesday May 16, 2023 @07:08AM (#35960138)

That’s a reasonable take. The opposite take is also reasonable. So I think there will be a market for both.

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Re:Translating Akkadian clay tablets with ChatGPT? by namaria on Tuesday May 16, 2023 @08:37AM (#35961016)

There's a huge market for Real Housewives style 'reality' TV...

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Re:Translating Akkadian clay tablets with ChatGPT? by kenjackson on Tuesday May 16, 2023 @12:01PM (#35963711)

There is. Better than a lot of what many critics consider good TV. Turns out that one size doesn’t fit all.

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Re:Translating Akkadian clay tablets with ChatGPT? by namaria on Tuesday May 16, 2023 @12:40PM (#35964336)

No, and I'm glad there's something for everyone. I'd hate to live in a world where only things approved by some definition of good are available. Doesn't lead me to think that high demand for something makes that something a reasonable thing.

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Re:Translating Akkadian clay tablets with ChatGPT? by kenjackson on Tuesday May 16, 2023 @01:34PM (#35965107)

You're basically saying that if you don't like the take then it's not reasonable. I find that unreasonable. :-)

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Re:Translating Akkadian clay tablets with ChatGPT? by namaria on Tuesday May 16, 2023 @03:11PM (#35966277)

I think "cheap iffy translations are great because cheap" and "rich people drinking and fighting over parties" are pretty unreasonable things. I'm proud of that stance.

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Re:Translating Akkadian clay tablets with ChatGPT? by dr_dshiv on Wednesday May 17, 2023 @08:55AM (#35974600)

All translations are wrong, if that helps. Some are useful.

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Re:Translating Akkadian clay tablets with ChatGPT? by doseijin on Friday May 19, 2023 @02:35AM (#35998516)

Indeed, learn the language instead.

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Re:Translating Akkadian clay tablets with ChatGPT? by thiht on Tuesday May 16, 2023 @05:57AM (#35959639)

Honestly this is an issue I have with Copilot: I hate reading and correcting the code it produces. The time I save by having it generate a block of 10 lines is lost by me having to review it carefully and fixing bugs (sometimes subtle).

I prefer doing it myself from scratch most of the time.

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Re:Translating Akkadian clay tablets with ChatGPT? by namaria on Tuesday May 16, 2023 @06:08AM (#35959724)

I think this is a result of conflating the act of coding with code as a result. The effort in understanding a domain and specifying a program is about learning and communicating about it with other people.

A working program is useful, but deepening knowledge about a business domain and being able to adapt to changes on the ground is the real value. Being accidentally right but unable to be consistently right over time is a distraction. It can generate false confidence, and future maintenance burdens.

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