@cstross I'm sure it does a great job on the Scottish "Aye, right", too

@scruss I'm pretty sure they don't react appropriately to the Scottish use of "cunt" as a term of affection (most of the time), either.

@cstross

"AI models tend to generate responses like "Thank you! I worked hard to afford it," which is perfectly polite by Western standards, but might be perceived as boastful in Persian culture."

Perfectly polite by western standards? Wouldn't a response like that come across as at least slightly braggadocious throughout much of Europe as well?

@skjeggtroll Yup, that article was CLEARLY written by a whitebread American who doesn't understand that boasting comes across as arrogant braggadocio in most cultures, including plenty of western ones.

@cstross Ahahahaa - is this article about taarof??

@clickhere Yup! LLMs can't cope with it. (I suspect they can't parse self-deprecating humour or irony either.)

@cstross To be fair I think "AI translation is fine" is largely an extension of the "English gets you by everywhere because globalization" pathology pushed by European governments and businesses for cost-saving and/or neoliberal-ideology reasons for several decades.

A friend works for an export-promotion agency that helps European companies establish a presence in East Asian countries, and has had quite a few stories to tell about SMEs losing their shirts going in on their own with that attitude, even in the supposedly-highly-law-abiding democracies.

There's a cottage industry of dudes whose only skill is to speak fluent English with American sports idioms that the CEO class loves. They wine and dine idiot managers coming over who have no idea about local language/markets/customs, throw in sports talk to convince them that they are huge players in local business networks and getting the furriner's products to market is going to be a slam dunk, feed glowing fake reports to string along the current victim, and then use the consulting fees to acquire new marks.