> Using an author’s tools, or ethnicity, or sociowhatever as a proxy for quality
For me the rejection of it doesn't even depend on there being any author involved with it, it could just be running free so to speak.
And language is very close to the ability to think and to even see the world around us. To just poison that well nilly-willy because "it's hard" is not a great argument. It's hard because it matters, and that's why learning language and improving one's usage of it is rewarding.
Personally I view machine translation that happens in a process of communication, as part of an ongoing process between people or in a group (mathematicians) that involves feedback and clarification etc. as very different than using LLM to create static "content". We have been using DeepL and Google Translate long before any of this hype, and it was fine.
You asked, what if the writer isn't a native speaker of my language, but how would they even know my language? They only do in personal communication, in which case see above; and otherwise, I don't want to read it. That is, people should write in languages they know, because that's the only ones they can proofread. That's the only way they can make sure it's actually what they think it is. And others who are good at translating (be it software or a person) can translate it when needed. There is no need to destroy the original words and just have the translation, at least I have no need for that.
> If people cannot write well, they cannot think well, and if they cannot think well, others will do their thinking for them.
-- George Orwell
Yes, this is correlated with privilege. Life is still not fair. Which we fix or at least improve by making a fairer world where everybody has access to education and medicine, not by pretending you can just fake the process by having something that statistically could have been an outcome of the process, had it taken place.
The poorest and most vulnerable people will suffer the most in a world where money and bandwidth alone can buy you what people think, what they see, what drowns out any human voice trying to reach other humans. This is what billionaires clamor for, not the average person, at all.
For me the rejection of it doesn't even depend on there being any author involved with it, it could just be running free so to speak.
And language is very close to the ability to think and to even see the world around us. To just poison that well nilly-willy because "it's hard" is not a great argument. It's hard because it matters, and that's why learning language and improving one's usage of it is rewarding.
Personally I view machine translation that happens in a process of communication, as part of an ongoing process between people or in a group (mathematicians) that involves feedback and clarification etc. as very different than using LLM to create static "content". We have been using DeepL and Google Translate long before any of this hype, and it was fine.
You asked, what if the writer isn't a native speaker of my language, but how would they even know my language? They only do in personal communication, in which case see above; and otherwise, I don't want to read it. That is, people should write in languages they know, because that's the only ones they can proofread. That's the only way they can make sure it's actually what they think it is. And others who are good at translating (be it software or a person) can translate it when needed. There is no need to destroy the original words and just have the translation, at least I have no need for that.
> If people cannot write well, they cannot think well, and if they cannot think well, others will do their thinking for them.
-- George Orwell
Yes, this is correlated with privilege. Life is still not fair. Which we fix or at least improve by making a fairer world where everybody has access to education and medicine, not by pretending you can just fake the process by having something that statistically could have been an outcome of the process, had it taken place.
The poorest and most vulnerable people will suffer the most in a world where money and bandwidth alone can buy you what people think, what they see, what drowns out any human voice trying to reach other humans. This is what billionaires clamor for, not the average person, at all.