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Why I’m More Worried About Dumb AI

When Machine Translation Goes Wrong

You’ve probably heard about the danger of a super-intelligent AI taking over the world, and then deciding the place might look better without us messing it up.

But rather than worry about hypothetical far-off scenarios, I’m personally more worried about living in a world where more and more of our interactions go through automated systems.

The problem is not automation in itself, it’s the fact that so much of it is half-baked. I’ve long been bothered by Amazon Japan’s horrendous automated translations, which will often phonetically translate the raw syllables of a Japanese word into non-sensical latin characters. But today I found a particularly damning example.

Let’s say you wanted to buy a carabiner to secure your climbing rope, for example. How about this one?

As you can see, it clearly says this item is “only for climbing”. And at about $3, this sounds like a great bargain!

But let’s check the original Japanese version just to be safe:

The original mention appears to be:

注意:この製品は登山用ではありません。

Which, if you don’t speak Japanese, translates as:

Attention: This product is not for mountaineering.

Slightly different, right?

Now admittedly, entrusting your safety to a $3 carabiner is probably a bad idea to begin with. But still, this is a clear example of machine translation gone wrong, with potentially dangerous consequences.