this post was submitted on 06 Mar 2026
205 points (96.4% liked)

Technology

82329 readers
3402 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related news or articles.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Earlier this week, PCWorld published a roundup of Windows 12 rumors translated from PCWelt that does not meet our editorial standards. We’re deeply embarrassed by it, and I personally apologize that the article was published. It should not have been, but we’re keeping the article live (with an editor’s note at the top) so it remains in the public record.

Windows Central published a response detailing its errors. Thanks for keeping us accountable, guys — genuinely. In the same spirit of accountability, I want to explain how this happened, and what we’re doing to ensure a mistake like this never occurs again.

Let’s start by discussing how PCWorld handles translated articles, and then I’ll dive into the issues with the article itself.

top 16 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Aberration13@lemmy.world 68 points 6 hours ago

Journalistic integrity in this day and age? Hasn't that been outlawed yet?

[–] TRBoom@lemmy.zip 98 points 7 hours ago

Good response. Love it when peeps own up to their mistskes.

[–] MountingSuspicion@reddthat.com 54 points 7 hours ago (3 children)

I thought this was a very well written, transparent article that took accountability as seriously as it should. I am still not sure why people are using AI for translation when translation software already existed. People mention that AI is more context aware, but I feel like when you saw those friction points in old translation software it prompted you to look further into the context, whereas AI will just make an executive decision and people feel like it must be right because it's AI. I guess it's possible old language software, or even a translator, would have done the same thing, but I still think people would have less inherent trust in the old software alone. I do want to point out that this AI issue was just a small part of the problem and they addressed plenty of other issues and how they plan to remedy those.

[–] Brkdncr@lemmy.world 37 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

This wasn’t even an AI issue nor even a translation issue. They published an article that lacked sources, and still wasn’t good enough once sources were added.

[–] MountingSuspicion@reddthat.com 15 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

Yea, I mentioned in my comment that there was a confluence of issues, but the article does point out that the AI translation made the statement more definitive.

Edit to add:

As part of our post-mortem on this article’s evolution, PCWelt’s executive editor pointed out that the translation makes the article sound more definitive than its native German. He says that in the context of the article, the German word “soll” signals a rumored expectation, but the English translation used “will” instead of something more akin to “is rumored to.”

[–] artyom@piefed.social 5 points 6 hours ago

I am still not sure why people are using AI for translation when translation software already existed.

Pre-existing software was also never terribly accurate.

[–] panda_abyss@lemmy.ca 3 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Translation is what the transformer architecture was designed for. It is the state of the art, and translation software has been using ML for a long long time.

This feels like an appropriate use of AI, but failure of editing.

[–] wewbull@feddit.uk 9 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Not with general purpose LLMs. They start off ok, but become much more interested in continuing the text they've already translated, rather than looking back to what it is they're meant to translate. So they drift off course as the translation gets longer.

[–] XLE@piefed.social 1 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

General purpose LLMs' failure to do a task like translation must be very funny for their investors. Even the more translation-gocused ones seem to have issues.

[DeepL] translation is said to be generated using a supercomputer that reaches 5.1 petaflops and is operated in Iceland with hydropower.

In general, [convolutional neural network]s are slightly more suitable for long coherent word sequences, but they have so far not been used by the competition because of their weaknesses compared to recurrent neural networks.

The weaknesses of DeepL are compensated for by supplemental techniques, some of which are publicly known.

(ETA I need to edit my comments to federate them?)

[–] resipsaloquitur@lemmy.world 12 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) (2 children)

AI is now the dog you blame for your flatulence.

[–] mystik@lemmy.world 11 points 4 hours ago (1 children)
[–] moody@lemmings.world 3 points 4 hours ago

Yes the word for cat is "chat" but the word for chat, in the online sense is also "chat" and it's pronounced like the English word. It should also be capitalised because it's a proper noun, eliminating the ambiguity that may exist.

[–] tidderuuf@lemmy.world 7 points 5 hours ago (2 children)

Next time I shit in my bosses coffee I'll blame AI. After all he required me to use it more.

[–] OwOarchist@pawb.social 10 points 4 hours ago

Me: "Should I shit in my boss's coffee?"

ChatGPT: "This is probably not a good idea. Most people do not like shit in their coffee."

Me: "I really think my boss would like it."

ChatGPT: "You're absolutely right. You should definitely shit in your boss's coffee. He's sure to appreciate it."

(And then, when your boss is mildly irritated, show him this conversation.)

[–] resipsaloquitur@lemmy.world 3 points 5 hours ago

“AI made me do it.”

[–] BladeFederation@piefed.social 1 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

Admitting their mistakes makes me want to read their articles more. If only Microsoft could bring themselves to do the same.