Computers as Translators
Foreign-language translation may prove to be just a bit more than computer can handle. From the Tower of Babel (вавилонское столпотворение) on there have been countless examples of man's inability to understand man. What hope is there then for a machine to understand man, or even another machine? Machine translators would be an enormous boon (благо), especially to science and technology. *A machine translator would obviously be a great aid.
In the 80s a machine that could optically scan the written characters and print out the translation was developed. It had a program that translated Chinese into English and vice versa. At a press demonstration the programmer asked for a phrase to translate and a reporter said:
"Out of sight, out of mind."* The phrase was dutifully fed into the computer, which replied, by printing out a series of Chinese characters. "There," said the programmer, "that means ‘out of sight, out of mind’."
The reporter was sceptical. "I don't know Chinese and I don't know what that means ‘out of sight, out of mind’."
"Well," replied the engineer, "It's really' quite simple. We'll ask the other program to translate Chinese into English."
And so once again a string of characters was output. This time Chinese phrase was fed into the computer. The translation was typed out almost immediately and it read: "Invisible idiot". *
(Без глаз слепой, без ума идиот.)
Exercise
Enjoy one more example of computer's ability to speak.
In order to make communication between man and machine as painless and easy as possible, the computer is being thought not only to speak but also to listen.* One Corporation has built a system completed with the complex set of electronics to give a computer "ears". The words were actually spoken into the microphone. The vocabulary was still limited. During a demonstration, the engineer spoke some computer's words slowly and distinctly, and the latter typed them back dutifully.* But it failed to hear one word. While counting "one, two, three," the computer typed back: "one, two, four." The demonstrator snapped "Idiot," and the computer, in a veritable machine version of British aplomb, calmly replied: "Not in vocabulary." *
Exercises
Try to guess the meaning of the underlined words
Translate the sentences marked with an asterisk
Exercise
Read and smile
Electronic computer
As you know, electronic computers can solve mathematical problems, answer difficult questions, translate articles into a foreign language and do many other things.
One day Field-Marshal Montgomery was given a computer, which was able to solve all the possible strategic problems.
The Field-Marshal was very pleased, as he was trying to find an answer to a difficult problem at the moment.
The adjutant put the computer into operation and the Field-Marshal set the problem, which was the following:
“The enemy has just opened fire from the South. Twelve German tanks have appeared in front of our lines… we have shot down two German planes… “
And finally came the question:”Shall I attack or withdraw?” the computer started to work at once. The officers who had gathered round the table could see lights and hear sounds. Then something inside moved and at last came the answer. It was “Yes.”
Field-Marshal Montgomery’s face turned red and he shouted angrily:”Yes, what?!!!”
The computer started to work at once. Half an hour later the next answer came:”Yes, sir.”