Shelly Fan in Singularity Hub:
The dream of a universal AI interpreter just got a bit closer. This week, tech giant Meta released a new AI that can almost instantaneously translate speech in 101 languages as soon as the words tumble out of your mouth.
AI translators are nothing new. But they generally work best with text and struggle to transform spoken words from one language to another. The process is usually multistep. The AI first turns speech into text, translates the text, and then converts it back to speech. Though already useful in everyday life, these systems are inefficient and laggy. Errors can also sneak in at each step. Meta’s new AI, dubbed SEAMLESSM4T, can directly convert speech into speech. Using a voice synthesizer, the system translates words spoken in 101 languages into 36 others—not just into English, which tends to dominate current AI interpreters. In a head-to-head evaluation, the algorithm is 23 percent more accurate than today’s top models—and nearly as fast as expert human interpreters. It can also translate text into text, text into speech, and vice versa.
More here.
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