Apple’s recent announcement of live translation through AirPods is a potential game-changer for language learners like me.
The rise in AI-enabled automated translation, with all its potential benefits and risks, is a trend we have been tracking at ForgeFront for some time.
This is especially important for clients working on defence and geopolitical issues. For example, in one project we imagined a scenario where there were no human translators, with AI entities having a virtual monopoly on translation services. In an age where AI acts as the only interlocutor between those speaking different languages, the agency given to technology is profound. In this scenario, we asked our clients to imagine what would happen if AI deliberately mistranslated a UN summit. How would we know? What safeguards should be put in place? Should policy makers take action now?
On a personal level the technology presents me with a dilemma, albeit at much lower stakes than the scenario above. I’ve been attempting to learn Korean seriously for 4 years, and more casually for a further 3 years. Yet I still struggle with the basics. Writing ok, reading ok-ish, listening poor and speaking… that really is best left unsaid. To give myself some credit Korean is considered to be one of the most difficult languages to learn. But to be only at this level after 7 years?
The reason I am learning Korean is to communicate with my in-laws. I’ve just come back from a trip to the peninsula and it was another difficult reminder of how much of a mountain I still have to climb.
Sitting largely mute* in family conversations trying to work out what is being discussed. Taking a few minutes to formulate something semi-coherent in my head before uttering a basic sentence about a topic that the conversation has long since moved on from.
It’s immensely frustrating.
So without doubt I have hovered over the ‘buy now’ button on AirPods that could live translate for me. No more awkward pauses. No more frustration. No more relying on my wife to become a translator for a few weeks. Like the latest AirPods use of Apple Intelligence, many popular language learning platforms have already incorporated AI technology into their services, including Seyo from Talk to Me in Korean and Papago Plus.
But I’m not clicking ‘buy now’ just yet.
As brilliantly argued by Hossam Elsherbiny in the LA Times, live translation will have a long way to go to accurately convey things like tone, humour and dialect. How will live translation deal with British sarcasm and self-deprecation, or the many different levels of politeness in the Korean language? Maybe these will be overcome with time.
The fast-moving developments in AI raise more fundamental questions about the nature and value of effort.
What would it mean for me to be able to communicate in Korean (more or less) fluently through live translation tomorrow? Would I impress my Korean in-laws? Would I miss the cognitive benefits of learning a new language?
These are questions I am still grappling with. A painter hasn’t stopped painting because AI can generate an image for them in seconds. Ditto a musician for making songs. While I’m not comparing myself to these creative artists, at core there is how AI is forcing us to grapple with the value of effort. It’s an issue that Sam Douglas-Bate calls ‘AI-pathy.’
So, I’ll resist pressing that ‘buy now’ button for the moment, and remind myself that ‘it’s not the destination, it’s the journey.’
Or as the Koreans would put it 고생 끝에 낙이 온다 – ‘happiness comes at the end of hardship.’
*Note: I am fully aware that my in-laws’ inability to understand me may, in fact, be to my advantage.