You tackle language barriers by studying the foreign language, not by using some universal translator while hoping it can do the job. That’s the lazy way. We’re a million miles away from elegant machine-based translations. It’s just inconsiderate to use one, unless it’s an emergency. One cannot rule out simple benevolent ignorance either - there’s probably more than a few people who just don’t know how languages work, therefore never realizing just how difficult it is to go from one language to another. It’s a goddamn nightmare, and I probably don’t even know half of it when it comes to creating a software-based translator. Trust me, I’m bilingual. Hell, look at Google. With all that money and intellectual capital at their disposal they’re probably the leading company in this field, and yet the result is often terrible. That should say something about the challenge that translating presents.
But, whatever. I don’t want to stand in the way of freedom of speech, as long it doesn’t turn into unintelligible spam, blocking the more important messages, which should actually be considered as hindering and diluting the freedom of speech.
I don’t have to like it. No one can force me to like it. You (dear reader) are free to enjoy the semi-unintelligible text as poetry and art. I, in my grand spelling nazism, will not, not for longer than a fleeting moment as we struggle to explore and define humanity, and to mimic humanity in this ®age of information in order to create humanlike machines, machine-based gods, or translators which are indistinguishable from human translators.
For all we know, we’re dealing with a bot here, while we argue whether or not it should be allowed to have freedom of speech, by which I mean the right to post in a forum. Ever been part of a social experiment without realizing it? Of course not. Neither have I.
[politely sets the mic on the floor]
