You've moved to different country with a language that is vastly different from yours. Let's say you're an American moving into the Czech Republic. You need to sign an important document that has legal and business ramifications. Would you trust an AI translation on the document or ask for a professional to be in the loop?
For such a literal case, automatic translations generally suffice. The real translator touch comes about when their is some nuance to the language.
Was that a double entendre or not? If not, you might make a literal translation to get the meaning across. If so, then a literal translation will not get the message across. Vice versa, if it was not a double entendre but you translate it as one, you may confuse the message and if it was and you translate it as such, then the human connection can be maintained.
That is also the tricky bit where you cross from being proficient in the language (say B1-B2) to fluent (C1-C2), you start knowing these double meanings and nuance and can pick up on them. You can also pick up on them when they weren't intended and make a rejoinder (that may flop or land depending on your own skill).
If you are constantly translating with a machine, you won't really learn the language. You have to step away at some point. AI translations present that in full: a translated text with a removed voice; the voice of AI is all of us and that sounds like none of us.
> The real translator touch comes about when their is some nuance to the language.
And as we all know legal language is famous for having no nuance whatsoever, there are no opaque technical terms with hundreds of years of history behind their usage, there is no difference between the legal systems of different countries, and there is no possible difference in case law or the practicalities of legal enforcement. /sarcasm
What is clear to me that in a situation like this neither AI translation nor human translation is sufficient. What the imagined American signing an important legal document in the Czech Republic needs is a lawyer practicing in the Czech Republic who speaks a language the imagined American also speaks.
As someone who has been in that situation before, ‘literal’ translation is not actually a thing. Words and phrases have different meanings between legal systems.
You need a certified translation from someone who is familiar with both legal systems or you’re going to have a very bad time.
Which I think you know from the second part of your statement.
Legal documents likely have much more impact than a random chat with a stranger.
Is the professional _just_ a translator, or an expert in translation _and_ the domain? The latter is preferable; for the former? I'd trust Gemini or Claude.
If the document was some standard thing, like say a standard tax form that every CZ resident needs, then I'd absolutely use Google Translate / AI translation on it. The assumption is that there's no specific trick or catch in the document.
If it was a customized contract then I'd want to use a local legal professional who could also speak English.
You need a real professional for this and not just a translator (the translator can just as well run your document through an LLM and just send you the result). You preferably need a professional who has skin in the game (ie: approved by court).
It's probably advisable to have a lawyer eye through such a document even if that document is in English if there is the slightest question about what it says.
Pacta sunt servanda can be a real bitch sometimes.
When we bought our house in the Netherlands, an official translator was legally required to be present. I'd never have trusted an AI translation for a three-quarters of a million signature.
Sources are very well cited if you want to follow then through. I linked this and not the original source because it’s likely the source where root comment got this argument from.
"Separately, LLMs have been an unbelievable life improvement for me. I’ve found that most people who haven’t actually played around with them much don’t know how powerful they’ve become or how useful they can be in your everyday life. They’re the first piece of new technology in a long time that I’ve become insistent that absolutely everyone try."
It's the same one as crypto proof of work, it was super small and then hit 1% while predominantly using energy sources that couldn't even power other use cases due to the loss in transporting the energy to population centers (and the occasional restarted coal plant), while every other industry was exempt from the ire despite all using that 99%
The difference with crypto is that it is completely unnecessary energy use. Even if you are super pro-crypto, there are much more efficient ways to do it than proof of work.
I’d like to provide the service to my semi-extended family — not just me and my partner, but also my parents and siblings. And I respect their privacy, so I want to eliminate even the possibility of me, system administrator, accessing their photos.
I specifically care about my server getting stolen. You need Luks encryption in place for that, but also some clever password automation so you don’t type it in each time
I think this is relevant to HN because the HN crowd understanding hyper-exposed themes better is a net positive.. So:
One of the very many supersad things in this: the Broadcaster weakened here (Kan), as the public broadcaster, has been one of the voices or resistance against the deranged government that, starting from a point of 100% sympathy after the Oct 7 attack, has managed to provoke the blowback seen here.
On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.
So strange that I haven’t seen global coverage of this crisis on a daily basis, or demonstrations for “Free Sudan” on campuses. If anyone has a theory about why this humanitarian disaster doesn’t receive the same attention as Gaza, which didn't have such events, please feel free to share.
