Google moves to curb gender bias in translation

Agence France-Presse ^ | 7 Dec 2018

[Olog-hai]

Google said Thursday it was tweaking its translation application with the goal of reducing gender bias.

The move comes amid criticism that Google Translate often defaulted to masculine names when it converted text to another language. […]

Up to now, the translate program provided only one translation for a query, often choosing the masculine word for terms like “doctor,” and the feminine word for “nurse,” for example.

“Now you’ll get both a feminine and masculine translation for a single word — like ‘surgeon’ — when translating from English into French, Italian, Portuguese or Spanish,” [product manager James Kuczmarski] said. …

[sphinx]

We are headed towards Newspeak.

[GrandJediMasterYoda]

Look at this schit: This is a woman who claims she is two genders and look how wikipedia describes her, not as “she” but as “their”. The world has gone insane...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain_Dove

[Susquehanna Patriot]

Google has a diversity problem ... they are locked into using the English gender selected when translating English into languages where gender is integral to its construct ...

El Doctor
Le docteur
Der Doktor

[scottinoc]

Makes sense, otherwise it causes confusion. I’m surprised they’re not looking to eliminate gender-biased words from all languages on earth. English seems to be the most gender neutral language of all. You only need one word for lifeguard! Contrast the German Schwimmeister and Schwimmeisterin (David Hasselhof-type lifeguard and Pamela Anderson-type lifeguard, respectively).

[Caipirabob]

Effectively making it useless for most Romance languages. Chupa mi cul@, Google.

[rktman]

Oh, “them” and “they” instead of “he” and “she”?

[Olog-hai]

Looks a bit like a younger Vanilla Ice.

Sad that they make people like Andrej(a) Pevic seem more normal by comparison (when they are just as abnormal).

 

[rktman]

You forgot lifeguardette apparently.

[Dilbert San Diego]

So Google wants to stamp out gender bias? They want to reformat all the world’s languages to make liberals happy?

Do these people have too much time on their hands?

[I want the USA back]

It’s not gender bias!!!! What a bunch of idiots.

Goofgle is trying to change reality.

[Mrs. Don-o]

"Chupa mi cul@, Google."

I well-and-truly did laugh out loud.

[Buckeye McFrog]

Gonna be kind of hard to do in languages like French where everything has a gender.

[48th SPS Crusader]

often choosing the masculine word for terms like “doctor,” and the feminine word for “nurse,” for example.
“Now you’ll get both a feminine and masculine translation for a single word — like ‘surgeon’

So Google is now lying to its users? What is the person being referred to is a nurse and not a Doctor or is a Doctor and not a Surgeon? Does this mean that Google is in the business of lying?

[SoCal Pubbie]

I just tried it. Google gives El doctor as the Spanish word for doctor. So what the heck is this article all about?

[Vaduz]

Goofgle is trying to change reality.

Agree it’s what weak minded people do see media too.

[hanamizu]

English seems to be the most gender neutral language of all.

---

Ironically Persian is even more gender neutral. We all know that women are treated better where it is spoken—Iran and Afghanistan. That’s what makes this feminist drive to cleanse our language of gender distinctions so absurd.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

We qsup are headed towards ^{have been talking} Newspeak ^{all our lives.}

At the start of the Twentieth Century the term "liberal" meant the same in America as it still does in the rest of the world - essentially, what is called "conservatism" in American Newspeak. Of course we "American Conservatives" are not the ones who oppose development and liberty, so in that sense we are not conservative at all. We actually are liberals.

But in America, "liberalism" was given its American Newspeak - essentially inverted - meaning in the 1920s (source: Safire's New Political Dictionary). The fact that the American socialists have acquired a word to exploit is bad enough; the real disaster is that we do not now have a word which truly descriptive of our own political perspective. We only have the smear words which the socialists have assigned to us.

And make no mistake, in America "conservative" is inherently a negative connotation - we know that just as surely as we know that every American marketer loves to boldly proclaim that whatever product he is flogging is NEW!

I have my own Newspeak-English dictionary:

objective :

reliably promoting the interests of Big Journalism. (usage: always applied to journalists who are members in good standing; never applied to anyone but a journalist)

liberal :

see "objective," except that the usage is reversed: (usage: never applied to any working journalist)

progressive :

see "liberal" (usage: same as for "liberal").

moderate:

see "liberal." (usage: same as for "liberal").

centrist :

see "liberal" (usage: same as for "liberal").

conservative :

antonym of “objective"

right-wing :

see, "conservative."