Hector Martin

The space of possible language is much, much more vast than the entire body of written human works. Most sentences have never been said before, ever. Therefore, learning from past translations isn't going to give you a solution for new ones. It'll help, but it won't solve it.

Also, language is a moving target. Like if machine learning was trying to learn how to identify bees by photos of bees, and then they evolved into a different species while machine learning was trying to learn to identify bees.

It really doesn't work like that. You need actual intelligence, not just "more training". Did you watch the video?

A human does not use just the text. A human uses the full extent of shared consciousness, culture, current events, imagination, etc. Translation is a creative endeavour, not a mechanical one.

If you really think translation is just turning meaning from one language into another, you should try actually doing it some time. It's not that easy. People who have never translated anything serious often have no idea about just how hard it is.

Translating means understanding jokes and coming up with new ones in the target language. Translating means keeping in your head the full context of whatever you're translating and reasoning about it. Translating means knowing what is going to happen in the story in the *future*.