A potentially revolutionary technological breakthrough:
Alec Ross states:
“Today’s translation
tools were developed by computing more than a billion translations a day for
over 200 million people. With the exponential growth in data, that number of
translations will soon be made in an afternoon, then in an hour. The machines
will grow exponentially more accurate and be able to parse the smallest detail.
Whenever the machine translations get it wrong, users can flag the error—and
that data, too, will be incorporated into future attempts. It is just a matter
of more data, more computing power and better software. These will come with
the passage of time and will fill in the communication gaps in areas including
pronunciation and interpreting a spoken response. The
most interesting innovations will come with the hardware development for the
human interface. In 10 years, a small earpiece will whisper what is being said
to you in your native language nearly simultaneously as a foreign language is
being spoken. The lag time will be the speed of sound.”