There’s an old, old joke about machine translation. Supposedly, in the early 1960’s, IBM unveiled a computer program that could translate between English and Russian. A general from the Pentagon asked if he could try it out. “Give me a phrase in English,” the IBM technician told him. “Out of sight, out of mind,” the general replied. The technician typed it in, and a few seconds later the computer printed out a phrase in Russian. But the general didn’t speak Russian. “Have the machine translate it back into English,” he suggested. The technician complied. A moment later, out came the result: “Invisible idiot.”
Playing Around with Machine Translation
Playing Around with Machine Translation
Playing Around with Machine Translation
There’s an old, old joke about machine translation. Supposedly, in the early 1960’s, IBM unveiled a computer program that could translate between English and Russian. A general from the Pentagon asked if he could try it out. “Give me a phrase in English,” the IBM technician told him. “Out of sight, out of mind,” the general replied. The technician typed it in, and a few seconds later the computer printed out a phrase in Russian. But the general didn’t speak Russian. “Have the machine translate it back into English,” he suggested. The technician complied. A moment later, out came the result: “Invisible idiot.”