Sunday, June 30, 2024

Google Translate Adds 12 Minority Languages of Russia - The Moscow Times - Translation

Google has added 12 languages of ethnic minority groups living in Russia as part of a major new update to its translation service announced on Thursday.

Among the total 110 new languages, Google Translate will now include Bashkir, Chechen, Udmurt and Yakut, among others.

In addition to Tatar, which was added in 2020, the U.S. tech giant’s latest update now features Crimean Tatar, which is distinct from the Tatar spoken in Russia’s republic of Tatarstan.

Google’s demonstration of Thursday’s update showed a Chechen-language translation of the phrase “Our mission: to enable everyone, everywhere to understand the world and express themselves across languages.”

The company said it used its own advanced AI language tool to roll out what it called its “largest expansion ever.”

“As technology advances, and as we continue to partner with expert linguists and native speakers, we’ll support even more language varieties and spelling conventions over time,” Google said in its announcement.

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After 25 years, one of the OG anime visual novels has finally hit Steam with its first official English translation - Gamesradar - Translation

A quarter-century after its original release, Kanon - one of the most celebrated visual novels ever made - has finally hit Steam with its first official English translation.

Kanon puts you in the shoes of a high school boy who has recently returned to a town he had visited seven years earlier. He meets five girls who each tie into one of the game's major plotlines, with your choices determining which story you follow through to its conclusion. It's a cute slice-of-life romance that to this day remains one of the darlings of the dating sim scene.

Originally released in 1999, Kanon was the first game from Key, the visual novel studio that would go on to make the even more beloved Clannad. Like many romance visual novels of its era, Kanon originally launched with a bit of explicit sexual content attached, but later releases of the game - including this one - excised that content in favor of an all-ages story. It was a big enough hit in Japan to inspire light novels, manga, and two separate anime adaptations.

On top of the new, official English translation, the new Steam edition adds voice acting to the PC version for the first time, and upgrades the UI and visuals to look nice in HD. The game defaults to widescreen, which means some of the original 4:3 art gets cropped, but Steam reviews suggest you can still see the full, original art at the press of a button.

Kanon is a pretty niche game in 2024, but that's exactly why it was so exciting to see it among Steam's new releases this month. It's a game with a notable legacy in a notable genre, and it's great to see it get the chance to meet a whole new audience.

Looking for some of the best anime games? You know where to click. 

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Saturday, June 29, 2024

Meet the writer translating Alejandro Zambra, José Donoso and more - Los Angeles Times - Translation

Good morning and welcome to the L.A. Times Book Club newsletter.

I’m Jim Ruland, a novelist and punk historian, and although I’m currently on vacation in Colombia, book lovers never take a holiday from reading! That’s why this week’s edition is focused on Latin American literature in translation.

Colombia’s most famous writer is Gabriel Garcia Marquez, whose 1967 masterpiece of magical realism, “One Hundred Years of Solitude,” helped foster an era known as the Latin American Boom that saw the rise of authors like Argentina’s Julio Cortázar, Mexico’s Carlos Fuentes and Peru’s Mario Vargas Llosa.

Now we’re seeing another surge of brilliant writing from Latin America, led by women authors tackling their countries’ dark histories of political and sexual violence. Much of it is being translated by one person.

Meet Megan McDowell. She has won the National Book Award for Translated Literature, the English PEN awards, two O. Henry Prizes and an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Just this year, she’s worked on a new edition of Alejandro Zambra’s short story collection “My Documents,” the first unabridged English translation of José Donoso’s “The Obscene Bird of Night” and Mariana Enriquez’s upcoming collection of short stories “A Sunny Place for Shady People.”

I reached out to McDowell to discuss her process and thoughts on translating.

Writer Megan McDowell sits on steps in front of a patio

“It helps for me to be involved earlier, because I can see the process, talk to the writers about what they’re doing,” Megan McDowell says, describing her translation process.

(Maria Ródenas Sáinz de Baranda)

You have long relationships with many of the writers you work with, and sometimes you see the work before it’s even published in Spanish. That must be a tremendous asset.

That’s happening more and more. With Alejandro Zambra I often see drafts of what he’s working on long before I start translating, and I always feel honored that he wants my input. I do think it helps for me to be involved earlier, because I can see the process, talk to the writers about what they’re doing, ask questions. The more collaborative it is, the better.

What’s your advice for English-language readers tackling your unabridged translation of “The Obscene Bird of Night?”

Be open to the experience. Don’t expect the different parts to fit together on a totally logical level — they do fit together, but in a nightmarish, intuitive way. Being an active reader with this novel means letting yourself be carried along on its current and being open to feeling what it inspires you to feel.

How do you approach a novel that is long, labyrinthine and grotesque but is much loved for being all of those things?

I wanted to get to know [Donoso], and two works were very helpful in that: Cecilia García-Huidobro’s collection of his diaries, and the absolutely stunning biography that his daughter Pilar wrote, called “Correr el tupido velo.” I wanted to get the most complete image of him as a person — he was a man full of contradictions who wore a lot of masks, and understanding that about him helped me move through the book a little better, since there’s a lot about this novel that’s tied to his own biography.

It’s a colossus of Latin American literature, and I can see its influence on another vast, sprawling novel that you translated, Mariana Enriquez’s “Our Share of Night,” which was a finalist for the 2022 L.A. Times Book Prize. Do you see any similarities?

Absolutely, and Mariana herself has cited it as an influence, along with Ernesto Sabato’s “On Heroes and Tombs.” They both deal with dominant classes in Latin America who exert their power over people’s bodies and land with impunity. She also mentions the novel’s focus on monstrosity and decadence, which clearly apply to “Our Share of Night” as well. Both Donoso and Enriquez are writers who are unafraid to look demons — their own and society’s — in the face.

You’ve also translated a new collection of Enriquez’s stories. What can we expect from her new work?

Among other things, you’ll get a seedy hotel haunted by a girl who drowned in its water tank, bird-women and disappearing faces, a sinister small-town artist named Yolk, cursed designer clothes, a girl who loves to have sex with ghosts, a woman who sees the spirits of those who’ve died violently in her neighborhood, and polite little boys with all-black eyes who run like spiders.

You had me at “drowned in a water tank”! Was Elisa Lam’s mysterious death at L.A.’s Hotel Cecil an inspiration?

Yes, that story (the title story) does have to do with Elisa Lam’s case — the main character returns to L.A. after a long time away to investigate a cult trying to channel Elisa’s ghost on the Cecil’s roof.

Can you tell us what else you’re got in the pipeline?

Later this year, there’s Alejandro’s moving and endearing collection of stories and essays about fatherhood and son-hood, “Childish Literature” (Viking). Then there’s Samanta [Schweblin’s] new story collection, which will be called “First We Fall, Then We Feel” (Knopf). It is truly stunning. New Directions will be publishing my translation of Juan Emar’s short stories, “Ten.” Emar is a hilarious surrealist writer with a cult following in Chile, and “Ten” is from the 1930s but feels timeless. Then there’s another book by José Donoso called “The Mysterious Disappearance of the Marquise of Loria,” also with New Directions, which I’m working on now.

(Please note: The Times may earn a commission through links to Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores.)

Recent, new and forthcoming books with a Colombian connection

A man with a mustache and a yellow rose in his lapel reaches out his hand and smiles

New writing by Gabriel García Marquez, Colombia’s most famous writer, was published in March.

(Eduardo Verdugo / Associated Press)

“Until August,” Gabriel García Marquez’s incomplete novel, was published in March, but not everyone is happy about it, including — presumably — its late author.

“Hombrecito” by Santiago Jose Sanchez, a coming-of-age story set in Colombia and the United States, was published earlier this week. You can read an excerpt at LitHub: “Mountains border the city on all sides. Their peaks slice open the clouds blown in from the Amazon and the Pacific, staining the city brown with rain.”

“Pink Slime” by Fernanda Trías, translated by Heather Cleary, hits the shelves next week and early reviews are oozing with praise: “Set in a dystopian port city in which the fish have died and birds have gone extinct, Trías’s novel is textured by sharp, bloodied images.”

Maria Ospina’s “Variations on the Body,” also translated by Cleary, consists of “six subtly connected stories” about the lives of women in contemporary Bogotá.

The Week(s) in Books

Six photos of authors, three men and three women

Mystery writers tell The Times about what they’ve been into lately.

(Nic Persinger; Soho Press; Marcia Wilson; Andy Barclay; Soho Press; Holly Clark)

Paula L. Woods talks to five mystery writers about what they’re reading and writing. Can you guess who’s revisiting Marquez’s “One Hundred Years of Solitude” this summer?

Mike Madrid considers the political implications of the Latino vote — and what everyone gets wrong about it — in his forthcoming book “The Latino Century: How America’s Largest Minority Is Transforming Democracy.”

Jessica Ferri reviews Rachel Cusk’s new novel, “Parade,” which explores “the total destruction of the female self through art, inspired by real artists such as Louise Bourgeois and Paula Modersohn-Becker.”

Raha Rafii unpacks Cody Delistraty’s hybrid memoir “The Grief Cure: Looking for the End of Loss.” “What is most striking is the loneliness of Delistraty’s journey, and his seeming faith in the products of the very capitalist systems, such as the tech industry, that have standardized such loneliness.”

Latin American writers in the L.A. Times

Alejandro Zambra, the next Chilean breakthrough in the book world, was inspired by Roberto Bolaño.

Alejandro Zambra, the next Chilean breakthrough in the book world, was inspired by Roberto Bolaño.

(Rodrigo Jardón)

Lisa Alvarez offers a reading guide to the life and work of Gabriel García Marquez. Her advice? “Start with the stories.”

Alejandro Zambra discusses the influence of Roberto Bolaño on his work with Dorany Pineda.

“I think of the novel as one of those people who visits you and you fill their glass every once in a while so they’ll never leave.”

The Times reviewed Samanta Schweblin’s novel “Little Eyes” in 2020 and her debut novel, “Fever Dream,” in 2017. Both of these eerie and unsettling books were translated by Megan McDowell and the latter has been made into a feature film.

Carolina A. Miranda explores Benjamín Labatut’s obsession with the color blue: “‘When We Cease to Understand the World’ is inspired by scientific history, but it is not a straight historical account. It is a novel.”

Thanks for reading! I’ll be back in two weeks with some books about baseball — just in time for the MLB All-Star break.

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Mom Translating Gen Alpha Slang Into Millennial Goes Viral - Newsweek - Translation

A woman has translated Generation Alpha slang into the informal language that millennials tend to use, sparking discussion among viewers online in the process.

The woman, who is known as @splendidlysmittenjen on TikTok, shared her take on Gen Alpha words and phrases on the platform four days ago. The creator, whose two children are in the demographic, told viewers that things become "much easier" when adults can understand their kids' lingo.

"Exact translation, let's go," the woman said in the video, which has racked up 13,500 likes and over 2,800 comments so far. "'Simp' [to] Gen Alpha means that you are crushing hard, but in a negative way. That's just 'whip,' you're whipped.

"'Skibiddy Ohio' [is] 'wack' for us millennials," she added.

The woman moved on to "rizz," a slang word that she said her kids love. She noted that its direct millennial translation would be "you've got game" or "she's got game."

"'Bet' is just 'word,'" she said. "'Preppy' is just 'basic' for us millennials."

"'Facts' [equals] 'legit,'" she added.

The woman sped through the last few words, which included "mewing" and "no cap." She said that the former has the same meaning as the sassy insult, "talk to the hand," while the latter means "for reals."

Gen Alpha, born from 2010 onward, is the first group to grow up entirely in the 21st century, making them uniquely positioned to be the most technologically immersed generation yet.

These children, often the offspring of millennials, tend to derive much of their slang from the internetin particular, social media platforms. They adopt and adapt language trends quickly, creating a dynamic and ever-evolving lexicon. The woman shared in her post, which has been viewed over 667,000 times, that her children are both under 10.

Her translations have spurred debate in the post's comments section, where TikTok users have shared their thoughts on where these words are best placed.

Teenage Girl Sits On Bed With Ipad
Stock image of a preteen girl scrolling on a tablet. A woman sparked discussion on TikTok after sharing how Gen Alpha slang translates into millennial slang. Stock image of a preteen girl scrolling on a tablet. A woman sparked discussion on TikTok after sharing how Gen Alpha slang translates into millennial slang. Getty Images

"'Mewing' is waaaayy off," one user, @ogshadrachdingle, wrote.

Another user, @hannahhlr77, explained: "'Rizz' is charisma."

"'Mewing' is actually more like working on your jawline because having a nice jawline is associated with looking good," a third user, @kadenjvu, wrote.

TikToker @jeffdrew1, said: "'Bet' is Gen X."

Newsweek reached out to @splendidlysmittenjen via email and TikTok for comment.

Do you have any funny or adorable videos that you want to share? We want to see the best ones! Send them in to life@newsweek.com and they could appear on our site.

Uncommon Knowledge

Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.

Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.

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Meet the writer translating Alejandro Zambra, José Donoso and more - Los Angeles Times - Translation

Good morning and welcome to the L.A. Times Book Club newsletter.

I’m Jim Ruland, a novelist and punk historian, and although I’m currently on vacation in Colombia, book lovers never take a holiday from reading! That’s why this week’s edition is focused on Latin American literature in translation.

Colombia’s most famous writer is Gabriel Garcia Marquez, whose 1967 masterpiece of magical realism, “One Hundred Years of Solitude,” helped foster an era known as the Latin American Boom that saw the rise of authors like Argentina’s Julio Cortázar, Mexico’s Carlos Fuentes and Peru’s Mario Vargas Llosa.

Now we’re seeing another surge of brilliant writing from Latin America, led by women authors tackling their countries’ dark histories of political and sexual violence. Much of it is being translated by one person.

Meet Megan McDowell. She has won the National Book Award for Translated Literature, the English PEN awards, two O. Henry Prizes and an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Just this year, she’s worked on a new edition of Alejandro Zambra’s short story collection “My Documents,” the first unabridged English translation of José Donoso’s “The Obscene Bird of Night” and Mariana Enriquez’s upcoming collection of short stories “A Sunny Place for Shady People.”

I reached out to McDowell to discuss her process and thoughts on translating.

Writer Megan McDowell sits on steps in front of a patio

“It helps for me to be involved earlier, because I can see the process, talk to the writers about what they’re doing,” Megan McDowell says, describing her translation process.

(Maria Ródenas Sáinz de Baranda)

You have long relationships with many of the writers you work with, and sometimes you see the work before it’s even published in Spanish. That must be a tremendous asset.

That’s happening more and more. With Alejandro Zambra I often see drafts of what he’s working on long before I start translating, and I always feel honored that he wants my input. I do think it helps for me to be involved earlier, because I can see the process, talk to the writers about what they’re doing, ask questions. The more collaborative it is, the better.

What’s your advice for English-language readers tackling your unabridged translation of “The Obscene Bird of Night?”

Be open to the experience. Don’t expect the different parts to fit together on a totally logical level — they do fit together, but in a nightmarish, intuitive way. Being an active reader with this novel means letting yourself be carried along on its current and being open to feeling what it inspires you to feel.

How do you approach a novel that is long, labyrinthine and grotesque but is much loved for being all of those things?

I wanted to get to know [Donoso], and two works were very helpful in that: Cecilia García-Huidobro’s collection of his diaries, and the absolutely stunning biography that his daughter Pilar wrote, called “Correr el tupido velo.” I wanted to get the most complete image of him as a person — he was a man full of contradictions who wore a lot of masks, and understanding that about him helped me move through the book a little better, since there’s a lot about this novel that’s tied to his own biography.

It’s a colossus of Latin American literature, and I can see its influence on another vast, sprawling novel that you translated, Mariana Enriquez’s “Our Share of Night,” which was a finalist for the 2022 L.A. Times Book Prize. Do you see any similarities?

Absolutely, and Mariana herself has cited it as an influence, along with Ernesto Sabato’s “On Heroes and Tombs.” They both deal with dominant classes in Latin America who exert their power over people’s bodies and land with impunity. She also mentions the novel’s focus on monstrosity and decadence, which clearly apply to “Our Share of Night” as well. Both Donoso and Enriquez are writers who are unafraid to look demons — their own and society’s — in the face.

You’ve also translated a new collection of Enriquez’s stories. What can we expect from her new work?

Among other things, you’ll get a seedy hotel haunted by a girl who drowned in its water tank, bird-women and disappearing faces, a sinister small-town artist named Yolk, cursed designer clothes, a girl who loves to have sex with ghosts, a woman who sees the spirits of those who’ve died violently in her neighborhood, and polite little boys with all-black eyes who run like spiders.

You had me at “drowned in a water tank”! Was Elisa Lam’s mysterious death at L.A.’s Hotel Cecil an inspiration?

Yes, that story (the title story) does have to do with Elisa Lam’s case — the main character returns to L.A. after a long time away to investigate a cult trying to channel Elisa’s ghost on the Cecil’s roof.

Can you tell us what else you’re got in the pipeline?

Later this year, there’s Alejandro’s moving and endearing collection of stories and essays about fatherhood and son-hood, “Childish Literature” (Viking). Then there’s Samanta [Schweblin’s] new story collection, which will be called “First We Fall, Then We Feel” (Knopf). It is truly stunning. New Directions will be publishing my translation of Juan Emar’s short stories, “Ten.” Emar is a hilarious surrealist writer with a cult following in Chile, and “Ten” is from the 1930s but feels timeless. Then there’s another book by José Donoso called “The Mysterious Disappearance of the Marquise of Loria,” also with New Directions, which I’m working on now.

(Please note: The Times may earn a commission through links to Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores.)

Recent, new and forthcoming books with a Colombian connection

A man with a mustache and a yellow rose in his lapel reaches out his hand and smiles

New writing by Gabriel García Marquez, Colombia’s most famous writer, was published in March.

(Eduardo Verdugo / Associated Press)

“Until August,” Gabriel García Marquez’s incomplete novel, was published in March, but not everyone is happy about it, including — presumably — its late author.

“Hombrecito” by Santiago Jose Sanchez, a coming-of-age story set in Colombia and the United States, was published earlier this week. You can read an excerpt at LitHub: “Mountains border the city on all sides. Their peaks slice open the clouds blown in from the Amazon and the Pacific, staining the city brown with rain.”

“Pink Slime” by Fernanda Trías, translated by Heather Cleary, hits the shelves next week and early reviews are oozing with praise: “Set in a dystopian port city in which the fish have died and birds have gone extinct, Trías’s novel is textured by sharp, bloodied images.”

Maria Ospina’s “Variations on the Body,” also translated by Cleary, consists of “six subtly connected stories” about the lives of women in contemporary Bogotá.

The Week(s) in Books

Six photos of authors, three men and three women

Mystery writers tell The Times about what they’ve been into lately.

(Nic Persinger; Soho Press; Marcia Wilson; Andy Barclay; Soho Press; Holly Clark)

Paula L. Woods talks to five mystery writers about what they’re reading and writing. Can you guess who’s revisiting Marquez’s “One Hundred Years of Solitude” this summer?

Mike Madrid considers the political implications of the Latino vote — and what everyone gets wrong about it — in his forthcoming book “The Latino Century: How America’s Largest Minority Is Transforming Democracy.”

Jessica Ferri reviews Rachel Cusk’s new novel, “Parade,” which explores “the total destruction of the female self through art, inspired by real artists such as Louise Bourgeois and Paula Modersohn-Becker.”

Raha Rafii unpacks Cody Delistraty’s hybrid memoir “The Grief Cure: Looking for the End of Loss.” “What is most striking is the loneliness of Delistraty’s journey, and his seeming faith in the products of the very capitalist systems, such as the tech industry, that have standardized such loneliness.”

Latin American writers in the L.A. Times

Alejandro Zambra, the next Chilean breakthrough in the book world, was inspired by Roberto Bolaño.

Alejandro Zambra, the next Chilean breakthrough in the book world, was inspired by Roberto Bolaño.

(Rodrigo Jardón)

Lisa Alvarez offers a reading guide to the life and work of Gabriel García Marquez. Her advice? “Start with the stories.”

Alejandro Zambra discusses the influence of Roberto Bolaño on his work with Dorany Pineda.

“I think of the novel as one of those people who visits you and you fill their glass every once in a while so they’ll never leave.”

The Times reviewed Samanta Schweblin’s novel “Little Eyes” in 2020 and her debut novel, “Fever Dream,” in 2017. Both of these eerie and unsettling books were translated by Megan McDowell and the latter has been made into a feature film.

Carolina A. Miranda explores Benjamín Labatut’s obsession with the color blue: “‘When We Cease to Understand the World’ is inspired by scientific history, but it is not a straight historical account. It is a novel.”

Thanks for reading! I’ll be back in two weeks with some books about baseball — just in time for the MLB All-Star break.

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Friday, June 28, 2024

Vasco Translator V4 instant translator device comes with a free unlimited SIM card - Gadget Flow - Translation

Vasco Translator V4 instant translator device

What is Gadget Flow?

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Why Use Gadget Flow?

We keep you updated with the latest tech product announcements for everything from the newest drones to obscure gaming gadgets. Our team discovers unique products and covers the latest crowdfunding campaigns. Save gadgets to your private or public wish lists, check out our team’s expert reviews, and purchase products directly from trusted sellers.

Meet the Team

Gadget Flow is headquartered in New York City, and most of our team works remotely from the US and Europe. We are tech enthusiasts who love to learn about new technologies and the latest innovations. Talented individuals who are passionate about the future, we work tirelessly and love to excite you and teach you about advancements in our field.

Join Gadget Flow Today

Explore the world of Gadget Flow so you know when any new tech launches—anywhere. Create your account using your email or any of our supported third-party logins, such as Google, Apple, and Facebook.

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Sign up to create private and public wish lists that you can share with family and friends. It’s also easy to organize your favorite gadgets into different collections, like gift guides, smart home products you love, and more.

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ETH Zurich and Microsoft Unveil an AI Tool for Human Evaluation of Machine Translation - Slator - Translation

In a June 18, 2024 paper, Vilém Zouhar and Mrinmaya Sachan from ETH Zurich, along with Tom Kocmi from Microsoft, presented a new approach to the human evaluation of machine translation (MT) systems that integrates AI assistance to improve the efficiency and consistency of the evaluation process.

Evaluating the performance of MT systems is an important but challenging task. Traditional human evaluation methods can be costly, time-consuming, subjective, and lack consistency among evaluators.

The researchers emphasized that existing automatic evaluation metrics “remain misaligned with the ideal measure of text quality and human evaluation remains the most accurate and reliable standard.”

Human evaluation involves ranking different MT outputs, direct assessment or identifying error spans, types, and their severity using frameworks like MQM. Komci, Zouhar, et al. published another paper on June 17, 2024, and simplified this process into error span annotation (ESA), a human evaluation protocol that focuses solely on high-level error severity, enabling “economic evaluation at scale.”

With ESA, annotators first mark errors with minor and major severity and then assign a final score without the need for error classification. The researchers found ESA to be “faster and cheaper than MQM whilst providing the same usefulness in ranking MT systems.” 

10 LLM Use Cases (Main Title)

Slator Pro Guide: Translation AI

The Slator Pro Guide presents 10 new and impactful ways that LLMs can be used to enhance translation workflows.

Speeding Up

Now, they aim to “make the MT evaluation process with ESA less expensive” with AI assistance. They noted that “one of the motivations of the AI-assisted setup is speeding up the annotations and leading to lower costs.” Additionally, they believed that human-AI collaboration can be not only faster but also “more accurate than human or AI alone.”

The tool, named ESAAI, uses an AI system to pre-fill the MT output with error annotations, which the human evaluators can then review, modify, or reject and submit as their final evaluations. They explained that this setup is enabled by the advancements in quality estimation (QE) systems. Specifically, they used GEMBA, a GPT-based quality estimation system. 

“We help the annotators by pre-filling the span annotations with automatic quality estimation,” they said.

The initial error markings are done by AI and then refined by annotators. Subsequently, annotators manually assign a final score on a scale from 0 to 100% (without AI). “The error annotation part thus works as priming of the annotators in giving more accurate scores,” they explained.

The researchers compared their AI-assisted approach to other human evaluation methods to evaluate its performance. They found that ESAAI can achieve similar levels of accuracy while significantly reducing the time and effort required from annotators to mark errors. This can potentially reduce the annotation budget by up to 24%

They concluded that “the inclusion of AI in evaluation also opens many options for further evaluation economy.”

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