Adaptive technology

[Notguest]

I have never assumed that Steven Hawking is a complete idiot because he uses a machine to talk. Neither have I assumed that for others (like the little girl in the video I linked above), and people who assume that are probably not worth associating with in the first place.

Hawking speaks English, not ASL. Which is basically the status quo. I was referring to the terrible broken English that a project like these gloves would produce.




I suppose it ultimately comes down to how good you expect the translation to be. I expect them to remain at "Do not want" levels of terrible for the forseeable future, but you're obviously more optimistic.

Still, it is hard to see gloves ever replacing, say, a tablet, because they're a bulky extra device you have to carry around whereas people are more likely to carry around a tablet anyway. Also, they're only good for one way communication, unlike a tablet.

[Mirage_GSM]

Mr. Hawking is a mute person - as in "not able to speak" - who is using an electronic device to translate muscle movements into spoken language.
Basically it's the same as this glove - only Mr Hawking can use much fewer muscles than the average mute person.
It enables him to hold lectures on theoretical physics, so I assume it is a few levels above the "Do not want" level.

Frankly I don't understand just why you're so opposed to the device. Nobody is forced to use it, nobody is suffering if someone else uses it (except maybe translators being put out of business, but according to you that chance is slim), and it could potentially help a lot of people.

[Notguest]

Mr. Hawking is a mute person - as in "not able to speak" - who is using an electronic device to translate muscle movements into spoken language.
Basically it's the same as this glove - only Mr Hawking can use much fewer muscles than the average mute person.
It enables him to hold lectures on theoretical physics, so I assume it is a few levels above the "Do not want" level.

The difference is that all the examples you cited were people inputting the spoken language directly. What the gloves are supposed to do is take sign language gestures and machine translate them into a different language. That process is what produces the "do not want" effect.

[Mirage_GSM]

Say, did you even watch the video?

"Hello, my name is Thomas and this is Navid. We are inventors in the Lemelson-MIT Student Prize competition." is a completely valid and grammatically correct English sentence. (Actually it's two grammatically correct sentences.)
What you call the "Do-Not-Want-Effect" is what happens when you let a computer translate one set of grammar into another. That doesn't happen here.

And no, Mr. Hawking does not put in spoken language directly. He can't speak. He uses the few muscles he can still move and the computer translates those muscle movements into language. The difference is that it doesn't use sign language - because Mr. Hawking cannot use his hands - but a different "language" specifically tailored to the muscles he can use.

One question - you do not have to answer, but I'd really like to know: Are you mute yourself and find these gloves kind of offensive, or are you just against them on principle?

[Notguest]

"Hello, my name is Thomas and this is Navid. We are inventors in the Lemelson-MIT Student Prize competition." is a completely valid and grammatically correct English sentence. (Actually it's two grammatically correct sentences.)
What you call the "Do-Not-Want-Effect" is what happens when you let a computer translate one set of grammar into another. That doesn't happen here.

The important question is whether you can take arbitrary correct ASL sentences and have them be translated into English. And right now there is no evidence of that. I don't have any way to know if they were even speaking correct ASL, let alone the degree to which this phrase was preprogrammed.

And no, Mr. Hawking does not put in spoken language directly. He can't speak. He uses the few muscles he can still move and the computer translates those muscle movements into language. The difference is that it doesn't use sign language - because Mr. Hawking cannot use his hands - but a different "language" specifically tailored to the muscles he can use.

Hawking uses a "different language" in the same sense that we use a different language when we type on a keyboard - that is, not at all. He's still choosing what he wants to say directly in English, he's just using an unusual input method to do it.

And no, I'm not deaf or mute, just trying to fight against common misconceptions. To be honest, I've probably wasted more time arguing with you than I should have.

[Mirage_GSM]

The important question is whether you can take arbitrary correct ASL sentences and have them be translated into English. And right now there is no evidence of that.

No that's not the important question, because that's not what that tool was designed to do. You can't hit a screw with a screwdriver and then complain that it doesn't go in the wood, because screwdrivers don't work that way.
The gloves were designed to translate gestures into words not to transcribe ASL grammar into English grammar, so complaining when they don't do that is unfair.

Hawking uses a "different language" in the same sense that we use a different language when we type on a keyboard - that is, not at all. He's still choosing what he wants to say directly in English, he's just using an unusual input method to do it.

Uhm... that's what I was trying to say all along. I came up with the "different language" simile to show you how his computer is similar to those gloves.
But if you want to put it that way: Both his computer and the gloves allow you to 'speak' the English language - they are just unusual input methods.

There. Maybe we're finally on the same page now.

[DapperDeer]

Took a quick peek at the past few pages and it doesn't seem like anyone's mentioned it, so I wanted to!

The creators of Deus Ex teamed up with Razer and Open Bionic to create beautiful, functioning prosthetic arms. They were actually showcased a bit at E3 these past couple days and they're really cool. Additionally, I use a prosthetic. I had a tumor in my right leg that ended up with me having most of my bone removed and replaced with a metal and plastic rod that's now a titanium rod, but it allows for complete range of movement within my leg which is pretty cool. If anyone's interested, I've got a picture of my surgeries showcasing my prosthetics. They're pretty gorey as they were taken mid-surgery, so I don't think it'd be good to post them here, but if anyone would like to see I'd be more than happy to in a PM.

[Eurobeatjester]

I think the gloves are a very neat concept, and like all prototyping things, there can be some kinks to work out. The fact that technology has progressed so much to be able to have something like this be possible is something that's amazing.

It's better than not having anyone there to interpret sign for you. I mean, I can make sense of what the automatic translators online say 99% of the time even if the grammar and syntax may be flawed. Even if it took everything someone signed and spat it out literally, it would work.

Not to say the technology couldn't evolve with learning certain "speech" patterns. Predictive text has done this for over a decade in cellphones, and 20 years ago voice recognition software would have you sit down for a few hours and read an excerpt from a novel to help program it. Siri and Cortana can do that on the fly now, for the most part. To think that the technology behind this won't evolve further along those paths is pretty unrealistic.

[Notguest]

I'm not saying that the technology won't eventually be there. I just think it will be bad for at least the next couple years. I expect sign languages to be harder to machine translate than written languages due to the lack of a corpus and the complexity of the input (hands, positioning, NMS, etc.) That doesn't mean it won't eventually be solved but it will take a while.

One interesting question would be to see if machine translators can handle any spoken languages that don't have a written form.