When Google Translate Came Alive
Google, in 2016:
Within a single group, we see a sentence with the same meaning but from three different languages. This means the network must be encoding something about the semantics of the sentence rather than simply memorizing phrase-to-phrase translations. We interpret this as a sign of existence of an interlingua in the network.
Exsqueeze me?
But, Gedalyah Reback explains that Google’s observations had more to do with well-known translation techniques than an emergent language inside the network. Though, to be honest, Reback’s explanation is over my head. So is the original Google paper. Like everyone else I’m just entranced by the idea that the translation machine did something unexpected.
Especially now that machines routinely do unexpected things. Time to adjust expectations.
Via Craig Mod.