TY - JOUR
T1 - The Tower of Babel vs the power of babble
T2 - Future political, economic and cultural consequences of synchronous, automated translation systems (SATS)
AU - Lehman-Wilzig, Sam
PY - 2000/12
Y1 - 2000/12
N2 - Since the dawn of human history, language differences have served as a barrier to full intercultural and international communication. The recent advent of synchronous, automatic translation systems (SATS), incorporated into the internet, are but the first sign of a communications revolution as profound as the invention of print. This article briefly surveys the following: (1) text/ speech recognition and translation problems; (2) current developments in machine translation (MT) and artificial intelligence (AI) devoted to resolving these problems; and (3) potential future SATS technological developments and uses. The second half of the article is devoted to a wide-ranging analysis of several potentially profound future political, economic and cultural consequences of SATS. The main conclusion points to a paradox: although (perhaps because) SATS will lead to greater linguistic (and external-cultural) differentiation, the overall impact will be centripetal - greater integration among the world's peoples, more international peace, and a general higher level of agreement regarding norms and values.
AB - Since the dawn of human history, language differences have served as a barrier to full intercultural and international communication. The recent advent of synchronous, automatic translation systems (SATS), incorporated into the internet, are but the first sign of a communications revolution as profound as the invention of print. This article briefly surveys the following: (1) text/ speech recognition and translation problems; (2) current developments in machine translation (MT) and artificial intelligence (AI) devoted to resolving these problems; and (3) potential future SATS technological developments and uses. The second half of the article is devoted to a wide-ranging analysis of several potentially profound future political, economic and cultural consequences of SATS. The main conclusion points to a paradox: although (perhaps because) SATS will lead to greater linguistic (and external-cultural) differentiation, the overall impact will be centripetal - greater integration among the world's peoples, more international peace, and a general higher level of agreement regarding norms and values.
KW - Artificial intelligence (AI)
KW - Conflict and peace
KW - Future consequences
KW - Globalization
KW - Internet
KW - Language diversity
KW - Machine translation (MT)
KW - Text/speech generation
KW - Text/speech recognition
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=0034553087&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/14614440022225913
DO - 10.1177/14614440022225913
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AN - SCOPUS:0034553087
SN - 1461-4448
VL - 2
SP - 467
EP - 494
JO - New Media and Society
JF - New Media and Society
IS - 4
ER -