Machine translation impact Essay

It is basically the practice and study of hiding information. Applications of cryptography include ATM cards and computer passwords. The goal of machine translation (MT) was to be able to create fully automatic high-quality translation systems which would produce results that are as good as human translators. Soon, they realised that language was more complex than they had thought. In 1966, the ALPAC (Automatic Language Processing Advisory Committee) decided that machine translation was slower, less precise and more expensive than human translation. Therefore, they stopped funding MT projects, and suggested that useful tools must be developed to assist human translators instead.
Nevertheless, we see that research continued in the field of MT outside the US. For example, systems like Mto, Systran and the Eurotra project were created. Though machine translation may not have been perfect, MT research helped in developing automatic dictionaries, linguistic theories and parsing techniques (the process of analyzing a text in order to determine its grammatical structure). Later, there were more controversies when machine translation became commercial. Some people did not think that the machine output could ever be the final product, while others thought that MT was no doubt a very useful tool. Then, the author gives her personal opinion and says that machine translation is an effective instrument that is being used in many companies and international organizations. But, MT will never be able to eliminate human translation.
We often ask ourselves whether computers can think or not. Earlier, the computer was thought to be an ''electronic mind'' or a ''thinking machine''. So, people thought that computers were simply mechanical human beings, capable of being creative as well as imaginative. This is a misconception even exists today. Then, the author moves on to compare the process of human translation with that of a machine.
During the process of translation, a human translator not only has perfect knowledge of both the source and target languages as well as the cultures, but he/she also has the ability to make some decisions when confronted with problems related to the language what the author calls language traps. The translator has the target readers in mind and knows the kind of language that has to be used. He/she has also acquires some skills and capabilities which develop through constant work and experience. It is impossible for a computer/machine to work or translate in the same manner since it will never be able to acquire these skills and capabilities. How will a computer ever be able to tackle the complexities of language? Computers are only machines that can tackle problems of algorithms. They can never develop the sense of what is right and wrong they cannot think, feel or judge. Since translation is not like an arithmetic problem, computers will never be able to tackle it as well as human translators.
We have seen that technology no doubt has a strong impact on all areas of society. Finance, trade, research, education and leisure also are being affected by digital technology and multimedia.