Comment by mtklein
6 days ago
I completely agree that technology in the last couple years has genuinely been fulfilling the promise established in my childhood sci-fi.
The other day, alone in a city I'd never been to before, I snapped a photo of a bistro's daily specials hand-written on a blackboard in Chinese, copied the text right out of the photo, translated it into English, learned how to pronounce the menu item I wanted, and ordered some dinner.
Two years ago this story would have been: notice the special board, realize I don't quite understand all the characters well enough to choose or order, and turn wistfully to the menu to hopefully find something familiar instead. Or skip the bistro and grab a pre-packaged sandwich at a convenience store.
> I snapped a photo of a bistro's daily specials hand-written on a blackboard in Chinese, copied the text right out of the photo, translated it into English, learned how to pronounce the menu item I wanted, and ordered some dinner.
> Two years ago
This functionality was available in 2014, on either an iPhone or android. I ordered specials in Taipei way before Covid. Here's the blog post celebrating it:
https://blog.google/products/translate/one-billion-installs/
This is all a post about AI, hype, and skepticism. In my childhood sci-fi, the idea of people working multiple jobs to still not be able to afford rent was written as shocking or seen as dystopian. All this incredible technology is a double edges sword, but doesn't solve the problems of the day, only the problems of business efficiency, which exacerbates the problems of the day.
It was available as early as 2012, probably earlier as IIRC Microsoft was copying:
https://www.pcworld.com/article/470008/bing_translator_app_g...
The part of that google translate announcement that covered translating handwritten Chinese must have gone missing
>The other day, alone in a city I'd never been to before, I snapped a photo of a bistro's daily specials hand-written on a blackboard in Chinese, copied the text right out of the photo, translated it into English, learned how to pronounce the menu item I wanted, and ordered some dinner.
To be fair apps dedicated apps like Pleco have supported things like this for 6+ years, but the spread of modern language models has made it more accessible
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