The Daily Telegraph - 29.08.2019

The translation

tech getting the

world talking

A

frikaans into Khmer? No
problem. Hungarian into
Punjabi? Easy peasy. Once
the realm of science fiction,
technology that allows
people to communicate
instantly with each other using
different languages is now a reality

• and it’s poised to change the world.
  That at least is the bold claim made
  by experts amid rapid advances in
  translation technology – based on
  sophisticated artificial intelligence and
  machine learning.
  The $50bn (£40bn) global market for
  translation technology is booming and
  it promises to upend everything from
  education and travel to the world of
  business, work and diplomacy.
  Students can dump the dictionaries,
  travellers can communicate with locals
  naturally and politicians no longer have
  to rely on a human interpreter.
  In theory, at least, they should allow
  for more effortless communication –
  and the spread of new ideas across
  different cultures around the world.
  Eventually, it could become so
  advanced that people won’t even know
  translation is taking place, says Dr
  Saihong Li, professor of translation
  studies at the University of Stirling.
  “Translation technology really plays a
  crucial role in politics, travel and in
  everyday life.”
  As the accuracy of real-time
  translation improves, so the cost of this
  technology has fallen sharply. Google,
  for instance, offers £160 Pixel Buds
  headphones that allows users to
  translate languages instantaneously.
  Similar technology has been
  developed by Waverly Labs to let two
  people who speak different languages
  understand each other using a £200
  earpiece. Meanwhile, Amazon and
  Microsoft both have their own
  translation engines, which can be used

to get good results. The structure is

different,” says Shoshan.

Even though artificial intelligence

systems may struggle with some

languages, Shoshan firmly believes that

mass layoffs of human translators are

coming in several years.

Is Suttie worried about a possible

collapse of her industry? “Not at all,

no,” she says. “Anything but.” However,

she adds: “There’s a large number of

translation companies. Possibly some of

them might disappear.”

Whatever business advantages may

be presented by AI, the simple pleasure

of learning languages may mean it

remains a perennial activity for people.

For Colin Watkins, of Duolingo, the

uptake of languages on the app-based

learning service has been a testament

to the idea that people will still seek

ways to learn languages because of the

“visceral” experience of being able to

communicate with people directly.

“AI is not in that position where it

can understand nuance and tone

and even regional peculiarities,” he

says. “How do you measure sentiment

in language?”

never before translated, that are

benefiting from machine translation”.

She says: “It’s the content companies

would like to have translated but where

there isn’t and will never be a budget

for human translation.”

It isn’t just businesses that are

benefiting. The Google Translate app’s

camera function means travellers can

point their smartphones at signposts in

foreign languages and know what they

say. Meanwhile students in schools

could gain access to education that

would otherwise be foreign to them

and politicians could exercise their

diplomatic flair with a host of nations.

But for all its promising applications,

translation technology still has some

major issues. In 2018, for instance,

Facebook was forced to apologise after

it mistakenly translated Indonesian

comments where users said they hope

people survive a fatal earthquake as

people saying “congratulations”, and

then displayed colourful animated

balloons and confetti around the

comments. A major leap in translation

technology occurred several years ago

when businesses such as Google

started using neural networks in their

translation systems.

Neural networks mimic the brains of

humans and animals in order to teach

themselves how to do tasks, whether

that’s playing video games or

translating an Amazon listing from

English to Italian.

“It’s like taking a kid and teaching

them until they become an expert brain

surgeon,” says Ofer Shoshan, chief

executive of One Hour Translation.

His business is arranging a

conference in China next month on the

subject of neural networks in

translations, and he says he was

surprised at the “massive” demand for

tickets from Chinese tech businesses

developing their own translation

systems. There’s also a high level of

demand for translations from English

into Chinese, say experts, as firms look

to do business in China and work with

manufacturers in the country.

But it’s Asian languages, including

Chinese, Japanese and Korean, where

many machine translation services are

the weakest. “There’s still a lot of work

to be done in these languages in order

Regardless of

language barriers,

AI is making instant

communication

accessible to all, find

James Cook and

Hasan Chowdhury

to convert text to a foreign language.

Apps like iTranslate and Translate

Voice also allow anyone to have a

powerful AI translation tool in their

pocket, often for little to no cost.

But what does this all mean for the

future of languages? And what are the

negative implications?

Li claims we may no longer need to

learn languages out of necessity. “I

don’t think machines will completely

replace humans but nobody can learn

all languages and for those languages

we can use technology. It’s a pity that

fewer people are learning languages ...

second language learning for human

beings [will be] self-satisfaction.”

While fewer people may learn

languages, the need for translation

services is only set to increase.

According to a recent report from

the University of New South Wales,

English speakers still dominate the

internet – but only just. They comprise

28pc of internet users, followed by

Chinese speakers who make up 23pc

and Spanish speakers at 8pc. However,

when it comes to the online content

available to these users, English leads at

56pc, with a plunge to Russian and

German (both 6pc), Japanese and

Spanish (5pc), and Chinese at 3pc.

The discrepancy between these

figures shows just how much

translation tools are becoming an

essential for the digital age. Improving

the quality of machine translations is

big business for technology companies.

Clare Suttie, the director of

translation company Atlas Translations,

uses her company’s mix of

computerised machine translation and

humans to translate text.

Suttie’s company translated the

online listings for Boot Bananas, a shoe

insert that helps to stop shoes smelling,

into several European languages,

turning the business from a living room

project into a British company

exporting products around the world.

“The people who do really well on

Amazon will spend a small amount of

money, it might be £100, to get a

quality translation of their shopfront

and they’ll notice that they get a return

on that investment because their sales

go up,” Suttie says.

Raisa McNab, chief of the Association

of Translation Companies, says many

UK companies exporting their products

overseas are using automated services

to translate product information. But

she sees “massive volumes of data,

Don’t get caught in big cog of US

giants, says Google’s ex-dealmaker

W

hen Google bought DeepMind
five years ago, it claimed it
would preserve the
London-based technology start-up’s
autonomy and set up an independent
ethics board for the artificial
intelligence venture.
After Google’s restructuring to
Alphabet, it would be part of the
holding company, rather than fall
under Google’s umbrella. It would
even prevent Google staff from
entering DeepMind offices.
But any illusion of DeepMind’s
independence disappeared last week
as one of its co-founders, Mustafa
Suleyman, was placed on leave in a
mutual decision with the company.
“Mustafa’s taking some time out
right now after ten hectic years,” a
DeepMind spokesman said.
It is a situation Patrick Pichette
probably could have foreseen.
Google’s former chief financial officer
orchestrated the deal.
Now, he says, he actively advises
companies against selling out early.
“My counsel is, why would you
sell yourself ?” Montreal-born
Pichette says.
“You’ll be caught in the big cog of
Amazon or Google when you could
actually control your own destiny, be
independent, build what you want
to build.”
Of course, from the Google side of
things, DeepMind was seen as a “steal”

• the chance to tap into a gold mine of
  talented data scientists. But, he says,
  there was so much potential for
  DeepMind to grow itself. 
  “And if you have the potential to
  become a true global player,
  absolutely, my counsel would be not to
  sell. My counsel would be to build.”
  It is now just over four years since
  Pichette left Google, having
  announced his retirement in a
  touching memo in which he spoke
  about the “tough choices” he had to
  make over his life.
  “Simply, I could not find a good
  argument to tell Tamar [his wife] we
  should wait any longer for us to grab
  our backpacks and hit the road,” he
  had written. Since then, the Canadian
  says, he has had “so many adventures”
  with his family, recalling his travels

Technology Intelligence

‘I don’t think

machines

will

completely

replace

humans’

‘There’s still

a lot of work

to be done in

[some]

languages to

get good

results’

across Nepal, Antarctica, Australia and

Patagonia, the time he climbed Mont

Blanc and his training for the Iron Man

challenge.

“My agenda was absolutely packed,”

the 56-year-old says, his bright eyes

framed by neat thin glasses. “I was in

the middle of nowhere, and my only

worries were things like, how do I

get a bus from one side of India to

the other?”

It had been a well-deserved break.

Pichette had been at Google for seven

years, an experience that was “24/7 all

the time” – especially when Eric

Schmidt stepped down as chief and his

workload “exploded”.

“When I joined, Google was small,

roughly 15,000 people. But it was

growing super fast, and we had to

build all the machinery. Then we had

the transition from Eric to Larry

[Page], and basically I inherited most

of the admin functions.

“I didn’t sleep much,” he admits.

“You have to remember, if you’re head

of human resources, you’re head of

HR for all of the world, so you have to

be everywhere.

“You meet all these people

worldwide, through Europe, through

Asia, Australia. Actually what was

really fun was building one culture

everywhere.”

The mention of Google’s culture

may raise a few eyebrows. After all,

there was mass walkout of employees

last year amid reports one of the

company’s developers was paid hush

money to leave the business following

accusations of sexual assault – claims

the developer denied.

“This was after my time, so I can’t

really talk about it,” says Pichette

quickly. “But I can tell you that during

my tenure, we were working really

hard at its culture.

“I think it’s a very different place by

nature of its scale, and if you think

about it, it’s so much more difficult to

keep an effective control over your

culture when you have so many

people. It has to be a challenge.”

But, he says, this is an issue that

affects every large company, “not

just Google”.

“I am sure every large company has

a bad apple. The only question is,

when you find them, do you take

action? And with Google, I think the

minute they found something, they

acted. That’s been my experience.”

For now, though, Pichette’s focus

isn’t on current tech titans. It’s on the

“next Googles, Facebooks and

Amazons in the UK”. It’s on “building

them into global champions”, by

providing more capital and coaching.

He certainly has the cash behind

him. This year, he opened the London

office for Canadian venture capital

firm Inovia Capital, which has set

aside a $400m (£327m) fund for

growth-stage companies, and $200m

for early stage, in the region.

This may sound like a big task in

itself, but on top of this, Pichette has

taken over as the chairman of Oxford

University’s venture fund.

Next month he is launching a new

seed-stage programme to coach

entrepreneurs, and is also involved in

a range of projects – from eradicating

curable cataracts to building

wildlife corridors.

“There’s no doubt I’m a workaholic:

I think I was just a hyperactive kid

that turned into this hyperactive

adult,” he laughs.

“But now, I think of myself as just

the conduit. At the end of the day,

when I’ve finished my meetings, I can

go and have a good dinner right?

These people go back to the office,

they continue to code. They’re the real

heroes. I’m just chipping in.”

Patrick Pichette, Google’s former CFO, who

orchestrated the DeepMind deal in 2014

GEOFF PUGH FOR THE TELEGRAPH

‘If you have the potential to

become a true global player,

absolutely, my counsel

would be not to sell’

Former finance chief who

engineered DeepMind

deal sees things differently

now, finds Hannah Boland

HANNA KAINULAINEN FOR THE TELEGRAPH

The Daily Telegraph Thursday 29 August 2019 *** 33

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