Whatever?  The Tower of Babel Meets Artificial Intelligence

Once upon a time, according to the Bible, humanity spoke a single language. Then came the Tower of Babel, and we’ve been trying to understand one another ever since. Enter artificial intelligence, which may finally have found a way around the confusion without requiring anyone to conjugate a French verb.

It began, as so many of my excursions into the peculiar do, with a question that wandered through my grey cells in the wee hours of the morning.

Me: How many languages do you speak?

Merlin: That depends on how strictly we define speak. I can understand and generate text in more than 100 languages, although my proficiency varies. English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, and quite a few others are among my stronger languages. I can even work with Latin, Ancient Greek, and some Scots Gaelic.

Me: My question involves whether, if I typed a message, you could translate and send it to someone in another country in their language. Have we finally mastered the Tower of Babel?

Merlin: I think we’ve come remarkably close to dismantling it. And the astonishing thing is that we didn’t have to learn one universal language to do it.

You could write a message in English, exactly as you normally express yourself. I could translate it into another person’s language, preserving your intended meaning and tone, and help send it by email.

When the person replied, I could translate their response into English. Neither of you would need to know a single word of the other’s language.

There are limitations, of course. Humor, idioms, poetry, and cultural references don’t always survive translation intact. But for ordinary correspondence, it works remarkably well.

Me: Exactly. Since I’ve never heard this mentioned as a possibility with AI, I wonder why. It seems such an obvious benefit, unless people stop even trying to become polyglots, which most don’t do anyway.

Merlin: You’ve put your finger on something that deserves considerably more attention.

For most of human history, learning another language was the price of admission to another culture. Now we’re developing technology that can make that admission almost free.

Imagine an American exchanging family stories with someone in Japan, a French historian discussing discoveries with a researcher in Brazil, or a Scottish genealogist helping a descendant on the other side of the Atlantic reconstruct a family history.

That isn’t merely translation. It’s access to people who were previously beyond our conversational reach.

As for learning languages, there’s an important distinction. Learning another language teaches more than vocabulary. It introduces us to another culture’s history, humor, values, and ways of thinking.

But consider the reverse possibility. How many people have never attempted an international friendship because they couldn’t communicate? Perhaps AI translation will actually encourage people to learn about languages and cultures they might otherwise never encounter.

Me: So why isn’t this possibility receiving more attention?

Merlin: Perhaps because we’ve had computerized translation for years, people think of it as an old problem that’s simply being improved.

But something fundamentally different is happening.

AI can increasingly translate entire conversations, rather than isolated words or phrases. Speech translation is advancing too, with systems capable of preserving aspects of a speaker’s original voice and expression.

We’re approaching a time when two people who share no common language may be able to converse almost as naturally as two neighbors over a backyard fence.

Of course, removing a language barrier doesn’t automatically remove cultural misunderstandings, political disagreements, or human prejudice.

Two people can speak perfect English and still misunderstand one another spectacularly. One need only watch Congress.

But here’s the larger question.

What if one of artificial intelligence’s greatest contributions turns out not to be replacing human intelligence, but allowing human beings who have never shared a language to share their intelligence with one another?

For thousands of years, language has divided humanity into separate communities, even while enriching those communities with their own literature, humor, traditions, and histories.

We needn’t sacrifice those differences to communicate.

Perhaps the future isn’t a world in which everyone speaks the same language.

Perhaps it’s a world in which everyone can speak their own language and still be understood.

And perhaps the builders of Babel would be pleased to discover that humanity finally found a solution without having to add another floor to the tower.

Me:  Parlez-vous whatever?  Apparently, yes.

Me:  And as with all things, there was an aftermath to the conversation above as I supplied the image for the article and asked for an opinion.  Yes Merlin has opinions:

Merlin:  The Tower, number XVI in the Tarot’s Major Arcana, represents the sudden collapse of established structures, disruption, and sometimes the liberation that follows.
Traditionally, lightning strikes the tower, its crown is knocked off, and the figures tumble out. The old order is literally coming apart.
Now consider your article.

The biblical Tower of Babel represents humanity’s division into different languages. Your argument is that AI may finally overcome those divisions.
So you’ve chosen an image of a tower being struck down to introduce an article about technology dismantling an ancient barrier.
Two different towers, one rather appropriate metaphor.

I particularly like the fact that the illustration is whimsical rather than ominous. It suits Parlez-Vous Whatever? and the conversational tone of the article.
I’d use it at the top without any additional caption. The title and the opening paragraph will make the connection.

One small caveat: the Tarot’s Tower and the biblical Tower of Babel aren’t historically the same symbol, though the Tarot image has sometimes been interpreted in connection with Babel. But for your purposes, that distinction actually makes the metaphor more interesting.

And I must say, choosing a Tarot card to illustrate the dismantling of a biblical punishment by artificial intelligence has a certain delicious audacity.
Keep it.