2023-04-18
Where Humans Should Learn From Machines
I'm not blindly singing ChatGPT's praise. Here, I beg to differ from the OP's/) view that none of the machine-translation engines (ChapGPT included) did a good enough job. To be fair, I think ChatGPT did an even better job than the proposed human translation. I would only propose a slight change to 常年不歇 for better collocation with 困境. Humans often come up with free translation with total disregard to the original word choice. To me, that has crossed the boundary of translation into re-writing. This unmitigated liberty permeates the ether of Taiwan's world of translation.
In this instance, the idea of perennial is completely lost, yet tranquility is introduced. At the fundamental level, the original compares financial crises to a kind of thing, using the generic a + noun (the kind of thing) + an adjective to emphasize how this kind of thing rarely die. Again, the proposed human translation tossed it altogether and arbitrarily focused on the effect of crises on humans.
If this single example is any prologue, machines follow translation rules. Humans are self-centered and think too much of pleasing the reader.
原文：Financial Crisis: A Hardy Perennial
金融危機：永無寧日（人類）
金融危機：一種常年不謝的困境（ChatGPT）
金融危機：耐寒常年（Google）
金融危機：耐寒多年（Amazon）
金融危機：耐寒的常年（Microsoft）
金融危机：坚韧不拔的常青树（DeepL）
金融危机：耐寒的多年生植物（有道）
金融危机：一个艰难的常年（百度）
這句原文很短，是一本書某一章的標題，意思是金融危機會不斷發生。雖然所有的人工智慧模型都翻得不好，但 ChatGPT 的表現還是相對較好。