Hello,

I’d like to invite you to an open Zoom call to discuss the implications of last week’s OpenAI announcements on our work as translators.

On the call, I’ll share a few of my initial thoughts. After that, I’ll invite a few others to add their impressions as well. Then we’ll discuss.

It could go for 30 minutes, or 3 hours… Who knows!…How many people will there be? Maybe 10? 100? It doesn’t matter. Even a small group can be enough for an insightful discussion, and everybody is welcome to participate. Come and go as you want.

The changes we’re looking at in our industry right now are huge and talking through things with others facing similar challenges can help make sense of what’s happening.

In case you missed it, not only are the OpenAI models now 2-3X cheaper, but the context window on GPT-4 has exploded by a factor of 16X. This means the “leaky bucket” problem no longer applies, and my “long-document translation workflow” is barely necessary. In other words, parts of our presentations at this week’s AI in Translation Summit are already obsolete! Whew…

What else was in the OpenAI announcement?

So-called “GPT”s come to mind. It looks to me like these could become mini-translation agents trained at the document level by the individual linguist to create amazing first-draft translations. As a freelance linguist, it’s hard to say whether this is good news or bad news. But the landscape is evolving, whether we like it or not.

Also, ChatGPT+ now automatically works multi-modally (voice, images, web, etc.)… and with knowledge of world events through April 2023.

Do you think I’m over-hyping the changes? I’d like to hear your opinion.

First, let’s all learn what we can at the AI in Translation Summit this week. Then let’s meet next week for this chat.

A few points of clarification:

  • Our discussion will be focused on the translator’s perspective. But it’s open to anyone, not just translators. Feel free to forward this email or the following link to a friend or colleague as well.
  • You don’t have to speak or share your webcam. You can just watch, and there will be a text chat available as well.
  • CotranslatorAI will not be the focus of the discussion.
  • All perspectives are welcome.

The following are the meeting details. Your advance registration will help me plan.

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You are invited to a Zoom discussion: “The Implications of OpenAI’s Recent Updates for Language Professionals”

When: Nov 21, 2023 at 02:00 PM Greenwich Mean Time

Register in advance for this meeting:

https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMsdOmoqDktH92GC7L5skLKsecxVoOgYJjD

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting, as well as a follow-up reminder or two.

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It’s enriching to be on the journey together!

Steven

PS: If you have GPT-4 access, you can use the latest AI model in CotranslatorAI right now. Simply enter “gpt-4-1106-preview” in Tools > Options > OpenAI API > Default model > Save (You’ll need to restart Cotranslator to see the update reflected on the main window.) This seems to be the precursor to the new GPT-4-Turbo model, which we’ll let you know about as soon as it’s released.