Robin
This is a harder question.
Yes.
First. Concerning translations, you may want to read this thread. We are currently evaluating the potential. While I personally don’t use any AI for scripting and programming nor for translating, doing all the hard work the slow and manual way, there are some people around here who have invested their time in giving AI a try.
Unfortunately I had still no time to look into what they’ve presented. Maybe a broader discussion should take place here, since this is something concerning the whole community, rather than a decision I could/should make alone. Do we want to use this, or do we want to stick to the traditional way? Maybe we should place a poll where users here can vote for the one or for the other option.
What we should consider is, there are some pros and cons for both approaches.
Traditional AI-less translation:
pro:
We have full control over what way the entries at transifex and other things are translated (do we actually, even when we don’t speak the respective language)
The translations are created by native speakers of the respective language. (at least they should be)
con:
slow. really.
much time consuming manual work required.
many languages have no translators at all, thus most of their strings in these languages are untranslated still.
AI-Translation:
pro:
Many or even all languages can get at least a base translation.
fast. it can save much time. (Not sure whether this is actually true, since all translations will need to be carefully analysed and checked by human translators of the native language anyway, which can take more time than human translating from scratch, in particular for native speakers of the target language.)
con:
It is way more difficult to detect a slight shift in the original meaning when texts are already present, than when the texts are translated manually from scratch carefully by humans.
Not error tolerant. (In case of errors in the original text, human translators can and will use their brains and their common sense to fix them. AI translates stubbornly every nonsense you feed it with.)
AI hallucinations
AI bias in wording and or meaning
Ressource wasting. (“For 10–50 medium-length responses to user queries, ChatGPT also needs about the equivalent of a bottle of water”; “just for the training of ChatGPT3 5,4 Million Liters of drinking-water have been wasted.” “The annual additional energy consumption by AI is equivalent to what the whole country Japan needs per anno.”)
discrimination. We have no control over the way AI “thinks”. This power is concentrated in the huge enterprises and the few super-rich people driving them.
This was merely from a short brainstorming, feel free to add your arguments.
From my perspective, there are good reasons not to use AI for creating any part of antiX, including translations. But I’m keen to learn also positions which differ completely or in the one or the other point from my personal view.
Windows is like a submarine. Open a window and serious problems will start.