Thursday, 8 December 2011


Machine translation and cut-throat intelligence.


Machine de Gramme
I quite enjoy finding the machine translations of Knowledge Management definitions which you can find on the web. I particularly liked some elements of the definition quoted below (from here), such as "tools and techniques to retain night out", "cut-throat intelligence" and "a strategy of arranged putting your unit together"

Knowledge administration is usually a strategy of arranged putting your unit together, modification, upkeep and also remedy for knowledge in enterprises, alongside methods manufactured to get the best of this night out. It appertains specifically to tools and techniques developed to retain night out and knowledge organised by individuals who make up the group. It’s at a time a software bazaar together with a portion of becoming a consultant practice is related to fields like cut-throat intelligence. The key emphasis of data administration is due to knowledge which isn’t all to easy to in electronic format codify, like man or women files.
However it seemed very familiar.

In fact it turns out to be a translation of a definition I already critiqued in my blog post on "cats and dogs" as being a particularly lousy definition.

"Knowledge management is a way of deliberate compilation, transfer,preservation and management of information within companies, in addition to systems designed to extract the most from that information. It refers specifically to utilities and methods made to preserve data and information held by individuals who make up the establishment. It is at once a software bazaar and a section of consultancy work is related to fields such as competitive intelligence. A major point of knowledge management has to do with information that isn’t effortless to digitally codify, such as individual experiences.
Actually I wonder whether machine translation hasn't improved this one. Though why it needed to be translated, then translated back again, I don't know. 

1 comment:

Maria said...

Currently the state of machine translation is such that it involves some human intervention, as it requires a pre-editing and a post-editing phase. Note that in machine translation, the translator supports the machine and not the other way around.

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