"A key question over the next six years is how far Google’s current techniques can take them. The strategy for the last six years has been constant: MORE DATA. But even Peter Norvig, head of Google Research, admits that there are declining returns to the more-data game. Certainly, it doesn’t appear that just adding more data is going to yield Gary Snyder’s translations of Chinese poetry. Eventually, it seems to me, Google (or any other translation software) will have to start understanding (in some way) the semantic content of the words it is arranging. And that’s a much harder AI problem to solve than the one that’s brought you the wonders of Google Translate."

— Google Now Translates As Much Text in a Day As Human Pros Can in a Year - Alexis Madrigal - Technology - The Atlantic

Tags: google technology data