Nice, but some things do require an informed human touch to really get right.
Show HN: Bible translated using LLMs from source Greek and Hebrew
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Re: Show HN: Bible translated using LLMs from source Greek and Hebrew
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
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Genesis is a theological narrative, which is very different to most things we read these days, especially as a software engineer. 1. The general consensus is that there were more people. This is assumed in Genesis and it (annoyingly!) doesn't bother to explain it, as the audience at the time already assumed it. Also, the authors weren't interested in all the logistics and technicalities that we are today. 2. Cities r…
thanks.
if there were more people, then how can we all get the sin from adam and eve:
The biblical data consistently understands Adam and Eve to have been real individual human beings from whom all humanity’s descent may be traced. This representation begins as early as Genesis 4, where Adam and Eve have sexual relations and produce children, one of whom kills another. In Genesis 5, there is a lengthy genealogy of Adam’s descendants, whose offspring eventually form all the nations of the world listed in Genesis 10. The contents of these stories are reproduced in similar genealogies in the books of Chronicles and Luke, which trace Adam’s descendants down to those who returned from the exile (1 Chronicles 1–9) and to Jesus Christ (Luke 3:23–38).
Re: Show HN: Bible translated using LLMs from source Greek and Hebrew
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
100% agree, like any technology it's neither inherently good nor evil. In this instance, I think it has the opportunity to democratize deep religious study in ways that used to be reserved for serious scholars. e.g. Do you know what the word "daily" in the Lord's Prayer comes from? Questions like these can engage the mind and spirit. I hope more people use the tools to fully explore their faith, instead of outsourcin…
You say you "100% agree" with the essay, and then say that LLMs are "like any technology it's neither inherently good nor evil." Did you read the essay? It says: "Instead of being merely “agnostic” as many argue, digital technology has amplified the ability of the princes of this world to feed the fallen man, to make him more docile and distracted while installing beliefs, morals, and feelings that are acceptable to…
Right, the linked article clearly and vehemently opposes AI chat technology. It says: "Clergy and laymen alike must become aware of the threat that AI poses and take steps to minimize or eliminate its use." And even stronger: "we should not rule out the possibility of demonic influence within its
output."
I'm not sure if they really mean to say that literal horns-and-pitchforks demons in the flames of hell are typing chat responses designed to drive people mad and encourage them to kill themselves -- or just that the chat programs are built and promoted by people motivated by a systematic hostility to human well-being. Either way, they think they are pure evil.
Re: Show HN: Bible translated using LLMs from source Greek and Hebrew
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
You say you "100% agree" with the essay, and then say that LLMs are "like any technology it's neither inherently good nor evil." Did you read the essay? It says: "Instead of being merely “agnostic” as many argue, digital technology has amplified the ability of the princes of this world to feed the fallen man, to make him more docile and distracted while installing beliefs, morals, and feelings that are acceptable to…
I did read the essay. Thanks for the discussion! "Those who use AI must always remember that it is psychologically designed to keep you typing and asking. It targets your vulnerabilities to achieve this end without any spiritual concern for your soul. To the creators of AI, your addiction to their platforms is a metric of their success. Many have told us that AI chatbots give “good” spiritual answers that are “correc…
> we can't reject progress
"progress" is a loaded term, it carries connotations of good. Not everything from the tech industry is an example of progress. I agree with the authors of the linked article that programs designed to create the illusion of a sympathetic listener in order to prey on the naive and credulous are just evil.
Re: Show HN: Bible translated using LLMs from source Greek and Hebrew
#75I heard or read that the LLM translation system is trained upon Bible translations because the Bible has been translated into more languages than any other book.
this is an important question. I am not a specialist in this area. I believe what you say was true before the invention of the Transformer ML architecture around 2015. I believe that among practitioners close to the Transformer effort, they passed around "The Common Crawl" because it was standard and basically one file chunk. I suspect that Bible material was just one part of CommonCrawl. more info welcome
Re: Show HN: Bible translated using LLMs from source Greek and Hebrew
#76> but the overall quality surprised me. With all due respect, how are you in any position to be able to objectively evaluate the quality assuming you’re not fluent in Hebrew and Greek?
You read multiple English translations and you get your own sense of how biblical text can and is rendered. Admittedly it's an aesthetic judgment on certain verses.
so you need someone elso to actually do the real work, so you could build a system that would do a strictly inferior job of it?
The bible was already translated well. The quality of your "work", by your own admission, depends on the "problem" at hand already having been solved and you having access to the solution. So it is literally ensloppifying an already existing better version.
Why?
Re: Show HN: Bible translated using LLMs from source Greek and Hebrew
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
You read multiple English translations and you get your own sense of how biblical text can and is rendered. Admittedly it's an aesthetic judgment on certain verses.
so you need someone elso to actually do the real work, so you could build a system that would do a strictly inferior job of it? The bible was already translated well. The quality of your "work", by your own admission, depends on the "problem" at hand already having been solved and you having access to the solution. So it is literally ensloppifying an already existing better version. Why?
What's your concern?
The goal is not ensloppifying the Bible. Quantitative textual analysis is currently painstakingly done, and still has issues (e.g. weighing phrases that mean different things in Aramaic than greek - e.g. the 'eye of the needle'). People have undertaken this work but it is expensive and slow.
LLMs can do this.
The bigger reason to do this is that the translation can stay 'up to date' in any language ('vernacular') much faster.
There's a pretty big use case for that in my opinion.
Re: Show HN: Bible translated using LLMs from source Greek and Hebrew
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
I did read the essay. Thanks for the discussion! "Those who use AI must always remember that it is psychologically designed to keep you typing and asking. It targets your vulnerabilities to achieve this end without any spiritual concern for your soul. To the creators of AI, your addiction to their platforms is a metric of their success. Many have told us that AI chatbots give “good” spiritual answers that are “correc…
> I personally believe the ultimate work of Christianity in humanity is to turn us all to repentance and bring us closer to God, not to reject the sinners. I'm Native American (indigenous, or whatever other moniker you've heard). Both of my paternal grandparents were subjected to the horror of boarding schools. So forgive me if I'm a bit cynical when it comes to the methods deemed appropriate by Christianity to "turn…
Late to the party, but speaking of "challenge your own biases", have you considered that "Christianity" as a blanket term equally covering
* historical American Puritanism (of the kind you rightly opposed)
* modern "rock concert and a TED talk" Evangelicalism
* Traditional Orthodoxy such as that of the Jordanville Fathers of the linked article
may not be the most accurate classifier? Anything more than a cursory inspection would reveal these are all very different things, even if they all use some overlapping vocabulary from time to time (word-concept fallacy).
Re: Show HN: Bible translated using LLMs from source Greek and Hebrew
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you would actually find biblical scholarship really interesting. It's way more fascinating than you give it credit for.
Biblical Scholarship is a lot like kindergarten art scholarship... I can look at my kid's art and identify the changing themes, influences of substitutes, changing friend groups, and step functions introduced by art class... And all of those are real and intensely interesting to me... but a random stranger will take a glance and notice that it's clearly in crayon by someone obsessed with the idea of cat and unicorn h…
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Re: Show HN: Bible translated using LLMs from source Greek and Hebrew
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you would actually find biblical scholarship really interesting. It's way more fascinating than you give it credit for.
Biblical Scholarship is a lot like kindergarten art scholarship... I can look at my kid's art and identify the changing themes, influences of substitutes, changing friend groups, and step functions introduced by art class... And all of those are real and intensely interesting to me... but a random stranger will take a glance and notice that it's clearly in crayon by someone obsessed with the idea of cat and unicorn h…
“There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”