Tugaimis droim láimhe leis an mhíthuiscint nach bhfuil ach aon aistriúchán amháin ar gach rud.
San áit a bhfuil an dá fhorainm tú agus sibh sa Ghaeilge, níl ach ceann amháin sa Bhéarla: you. Cothaíonn sé sin deacrachtaí san aistriúchán ó Bhéarla go Gaeilge. Gach uair a iarrann duine éigin ort abairt a aistriú a bhfuil you inti, mar shampla where are you? nó do you want anything?, caithfidh tú ceist amháin a shoiléiriú ar dtús: cad atá i gceist le you? Duine amháin, nó grúpa daoine? Murach an soiléiriú sin, d’fhéadfadh an t-aistriúchán a bheith mícheart nó míchuí.
Cé nach mór an trioblóid é seo don aistritheoir daonna, is mór an trioblóid é más meaisín atá i mbun an aistriúcháin. Níl sé de nós ag meaisíní aistriúcháin ceisteanna a chur. Má théann tú chuig suíomh meaisínaistriúcháin ar bith, mar shampla Google Translate, agus má iarrann tú air abairt a aistriú go Gaeilge a bhfuil you inti, is cinnte nach gcuirfidh sé ceist ar bith ort maidir le brí an fhocail sin. Déanfaidh sé a chinneadh féin, bunaithe ar cé acu den dá aistriúchán – tú nó sibh – atá feicthe níos minice aige ina leithéid chéanna de chomhthéacs cheana. Níos minice ná a mhalairt, claonfaidh an meaisín i dtreo tú mar aistriúchán ar you: cá bhfuil tú? (seachas sibh) agus an bhfuil rud ar bith uait? (seachas uaibh). Cé nach deireadh an domhain é seo, tá sé mícheart más le grúpa daoine atá tú ag iarraidh é seo a rá seachas le duine amháin.
Nach mbeadh sé go deas, mar sin, dá gcuirfeadh an meaisín ceist ort? Dá bhfiafródh an meaisín díot ar dtús cad atá i gceist agat le you? Go dtí seo, ní raibh meaisín aistriúcháin ar bith ábalta é sin a dhéanamh. Ach anois, le teacht Fairslator, tá.
Tá Fairslator mar a bheadh breiseán a chuirtear le meaisín aistriúcháin eile, mar shampla le Google Translate nó le Microsoft Translator. Seasann sé idir tusa agus an meaisín eile sin, agus tá sé de shíor ag faire ar na haistriúcháin a sholáthraíonn an meaisín duit. Nuair a thugann Fairslator faoi deara go bhfuil an forainm you (nó your, nó briathar sa mhodh ordaitheach) san abairt Bhéarla, gearrfaidh sé isteach agus cuirfidh sé ceist ort cé acu duine amháin nó grúpa daoine atá i gceist leis an you sin. Bunaithe ar an fhreagra a thabharfaidh tú, athróidh Fairslator an t-aistriúchán dá réir: ó cá bhfuil tú go cá bhfuil sibh? agus ó an bhfuil rud ar bith uait? go an bhfuil rud ar bith uaibh? Bain féin triail as go bhfeice tú cén dóigh a n-oibríonn sé.
Smaoineamh simplí é seo, nach ea? Chuirfeadh sé iontas ort nach bhfuil a leithéid ar fáil cheana. Go dtí anois, bhí na meaisíní aistriúcháin ar fad bunaithe ar an tuiscint nach bhfuil ach aon aistriúchán amháin ar gach rud. Ní tuiscint ach míthuiscint é seo, agus is é misean Fairslator an mhíthuiscint seo a cheartú.
            October 2024 —
            We were talking about bias in machine translation
            at a Translating Europe Workshop organised by the European Commission in Prague
            as part of Jeronýmovy dny,
            a series of public lectures and seminars on translation and interpreting.
            Video here »
          
            December 2023 —
            Fairslator presented a workshop on bias in machine translation
            at the European Commission's
            Directorate-General for Translation,
            attended by translation-related staff from all EU institutions.
          
            November 2023 —
            Fairslator went to Translating and the Computer,
            an annual conference on translation technology in Luxembourg,
            to present its brand new API.
            Proceedings from this conference are here, our paper starts on page 98.
          
            November 2023 —
            We were talking about gender bias, gender rewriting and Fairslator
            at the EAFT Summit
            in Barcelona where we also launched an exciting spin-off
            project there:
            Genderbase,
            a multilingual database of gender-sensitive terminology.
          
            February 2023 —
            We spoke to machinetranslation.com
            about bias in machine translation, about Fairslator, and about our vision for “human-assisted machine translation”.
            Read the interview here:
            Creating an Inclusive AI Future: The Importance of Non-Binary Representation »
          
            October 2022 —
            We presented Fairslator at the
            Translating and the Computer
            (TC44) conference, Europe's main annual event for computer-aided translation, in Luxembourg.
            Proceedings from this conference are here,
            the paper that describes Fairslator starts on page 90.
            Read our impressions from TC44 in this thread on
            Twitter
            and
            Mastodon.
          
            September 2022 —
            In her article
            Error sources in machine translation: How the algorithm reproduces unwanted gender roles
            (German: Fehlerquellen der maschinellen Übersetzung: Wie der Algorithmus ungewollte Rollenbilder reproduziert),
            Jasmin Nesbigall of oneword GmbH talks about bias in machine translation
            and recommends Fairslator as a step towards more gender fairness.
          
            September 2022 —
            Fairslator was presented at the
            Text, Speech and Dialogue
            (TSD) conference in Brno.
          
            August 2022 —
            Translations in London are talking about Fairslator in their blog post
            Overcoming gender bias in MT.
            They think the technology behind Fairslator could be useful in the translation industry
            for faster post-editing of machine-translated texts.
          
            July 2022 —
            We presented a paper titled A Taxonomy of Bias-Causing Ambiguities in Machine Translation
            at a Workshop on Gender Bias in Natural Language Processing
            during the 2022 Annual Conference of the North American Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics
            in Seattle.
          
            May 2022 —
            Slator.com, a website for the translation industry, asked us for a guest post and of course we didn't say no.
            Read What You Need to Know About Bias in Machine Translation »