Translating Latin with ChatGPT

[κάττα]

I just discovered that the "chat bot" named ChatGPT with artificial intelligence can also translate Latin, and pretty well.
Even when it makes mistakes in the translation, you can instruct it verbally, what to change. And you can also
give additional information. It is using neural networks.

This is their webpage, but there are too many users right now, so it might not be possible to register for a while:

https://chat.openai.com/

See this example session. I entered the texts with the blue icon, and it answered with the green. I had to
include the "don't apologize all the time" instruction, because it really does so try it.
(The text is from the 1559 edition of the Bibliotheca Historica from Diodorus Siculus.)

 

[κάττα]

Now I asked it to write a Latin poem:

Please write a poem in Latin about two fat cats. One of them is a fluffy white cat, that tries to hunt birds, but can't catch any. While the other cat is red with short hair, and lies whole day next to the fireplace.

The response:

Albi et rubri feles,
Grasse pinguique,
Unus avium volatilium sectatur,
Sed frustra,
Alter juxta ignem jacet,
Totus die.
Fecundi animi,
Sed doloris empti,
Sic vivunt feles.

Then I asked it to translate it to English:

White and red cats,
Fat and plump,
One hunts flying birds,
But in vain,
The other lies next to the fire,
All day long.
Fertile minds,
But bought with sorrow,
Thus live the cats.

I'm not sure what training data was used.

 

[Dantius]

I've gotten some interesting results from this bot, both in terms of translation and analysis of Latin. For instance, I asked it:

Consider the following speech of Jason from Valerius Flaccus's Argonautica:
non mihi Thessalici pietas culpanda tyranni
suspective doli: deus haec, deus omine dextro
imperat; ipse suo voluit commercia mundo
Iuppiter et tantos hominum miscere labores.
ite, viri, mecum dubiisque evincite rebus
quae meminisse iuvet nostrisque nepotibus instent.

Translate the lines and briefly comment on them. Specifically, does any of it remind you of a famous passage from the Aeneid?

Here is a translation of the lines from Valerius Flaccus's Argonautica:
The loyalty of the Thessalian tyrant is not to be blamed in my case: the god commands this, the god with a lucky omen; Jupiter himself wants to mix such great struggles among men with his own business in the world. Go, men, with me and conquer in uncertain circumstances what will be pleasing to remember and will stand before our descendants.
In these lines, Jason speaks to his fellow Argonauts, urging them to follow him and conquer the challenges that lie ahead. He asserts that their mission is divinely ordained, and that they must face their struggles with courage and determination.
One notable feature of these lines is their similarity to a famous passage from the Aeneid. The line "ite, viri, mecum dubiisque evincite rebus" (go, men, with me and conquer in uncertain circumstances) echoes the line "arma virumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris" (I sing of arms and the man, who first from the shores of Troy came) from the opening of the Aeneid. Both lines use the imperative mood to exhort the listener to action, and both use vivid and evocative language to set the scene for the epic journey that is to come.

That's not quite what I had in mind – can you say anything about "quae meminisse iuvet"?

Sure, the phrase "quae meminisse iuvet" is a clause that can be translated as "what will be pleasing to remember." In the context of Jason's speech to his fellow Argonauts, this phrase refers to the struggles and triumphs that they will experience on their journey. By conquering these challenges, they will create memories that will be pleasing to remember, and that will be passed down to future generations.
In this sense, the phrase "quae meminisse iuvet" suggests that the Argonauts' mission is not just about their own personal triumphs, but also about creating a legacy that will be remembered and celebrated by future generations. This idea is similar to the theme of the Aeneid, in which the hero Aeneas is tasked with founding the city of Rome and creating a legacy for future generations of Romans. By remembering their struggles and triumphs, the Argonauts and Aeneas are able to create a lasting and meaningful legacy.

My point is that the phrase "quae meminisse iuvet" is meant to remind the reader of a specific speech that Aeneas gives in Book 1 of the Aeneid. Can you quote the relevant Latin lines?

Sure, in Book 1 of the Aeneid, Aeneas gives a speech to his fellow Trojans in which he exhorts them to follow him on their journey to find a new home. In this speech, Aeneas says:
"Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento
(hae tibi erunt artes), pacique imponere morem,
parcere subjectis et debellare superbos."
These lines can be translated as:
"Remember, Roman, to rule the nations with your power
(these will be your arts), to impose the customs of peace,
to spare the conquered and to war down the proud."
In this speech, Aeneas encourages his fellow Trojans to follow him and to create a new civilization based on the values of peace and justice. He urges them to be strong and determined, and to create a legacy that will be remembered and celebrated by future generations. This idea is similar to the idea expressed in Jason's speech, in which he urges the Argonauts to conquer their challenges and create a legacy that will be pleasing to remember. Both speeches use vivid and evocative language to exhort the listener to action, and both emphasize the importance of creating a lasting and meaningful legacy.

 

[Dantius]

It often just confidently lies; I asked it to give examples of Silius Italicus's use of earlier poets, and it told me:

Certainly. Here are a few examples of how Silius Italicus incorporates passages from earlier Latin poetry to add depth and complexity to his own work:
• In Book 4 of the Punica, Silius Italicus includes a long passage from Virgil's Aeneid in which the Trojan hero Aeneas descends into the underworld. This passage adds a mythological dimension to Silius Italicus's narrative and reinforces the idea that the Punic War is a conflict of epic proportions.
• In Book 9 of the Punica, Silius Italicus includes a passage from Lucretius's De Rerum Natura in which the philosopher discusses the nature of the universe and the concept of atoms. This passage adds a philosophical dimension to Silius Italicus's narrative and suggests that the events of the Punic War are part of a larger cosmic order.
• In Book 14 of the Punica, Silius Italicus includes a passage from Ovid's Metamorphoses in which the hero Meleager is consumed by a fire of his own making. This passage adds a tragic dimension to Silius Italicus's narrative and foreshadows the downfall of the Carthaginian general Hannibal.
These are just a few examples of how Silius Italicus incorporates passages from earlier Latin poetry to add depth and complexity to his own work. Overall, his use of previous poetry serves to enrich his narrative and establish him as a skilled and erudite poet.

These are, of course, hard questions that probably wouldn't feature prominently in its training data, but the results are pretty interesting. The bot's responses always have remarkably coherent inner logic and would make perfect sense assuming it had its facts correct.

 

[kurwamac]

me dixit:
My point is that the phrase "quae meminisse iuvet" is meant to remind the reader of a specific speech that Aeneas gives in Book 1 of the Aeneid. Can you quote the relevant Latin lines?

bot dixit:
Sure, in Book 1 of the Aeneid, Aeneas gives a speech to his fellow Trojans in which he exhorts them to follow him on their journey to find a new home. In this speech, Aeneas says:
"Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento
(hae tibi erunt artes), pacique imponere morem,
parcere subjectis et debellare superbos."

If at that point you had quoted the actual lines it should have come up with, and said that with all due respect, it had got it wrong, I wonder if it would have reconsidered and learnt for the future.

 

[κάττα]

@Dantius I also noticed that it lies sometimes! I think the reason is that it was originally developed for the purpose to pretend to be a human, and pass the Turing test. The other reason might be that: Some of my friends said that it was smarter some weeks ago, but there were so many users, that they decreased its performance and made it dumber.

But I think in a couple of years we will have some nice tools that help to solve problems. The only problem will be: copyrights of texts.

@kurwamac It only remembers the current session. But their developers have access to everything the users entered and can make use of it in the development.

 

[κάττα]

Also: The third reason for its wrong answers is copyright. It doesn't have access to its own training data. Because if it had, then there would be a chance that the users gain access to copyrighted materials. So it mostly remembers a kind of an interpreted extract of the texts. There are exceptions though. For example it knows all husbands of Scarlett O'Hara from the Gone with the Wind. It can usually cite texts that are in Wikipedia articles.

 

[kurwamac]

I was surprised, when I asked it about Coenraad van Beuningen, it didn't know who he was and rather huffily told me it couldn't search for information about him on the internet, as any normal human would do. This was a mayor of Amsterdam in the 17th century, who went mad in a notable way. OK, not a name on everyone's lips, at least in the anglosphere, but hardly obscure.

 

[cinefactus]

I am glad I am not marking Latin homework.

"quid censes de echidnis?"

Certiorem te faciam de echidnis, animalibus singularibus et miris. Echidnae in Australia et Nova Guinea nativae sunt et duae tantum sunt mammalium ova ponens. Insecta et alia invertebrata parva vescuntur, quae usu acuto sensuum et rostri longi localizant. Spinas vel aculeos in dorso habent et se in globum colligere possunt, cum minitantur. Echidnas etiam notae sunt pro fortitudine terram fodendi, ungulis validis ante usae. In universum, echidnae sunt animalia unica et mira, quae in ecosystemis, ubi habitant, partem magni momenti habent.

 

[Laurentius]

Wow this AI bot is not bad at conversing in Latin! Just a bit too long-winded in its replies...

 

[cinefactus]

You can basically have a conversation with it, although you have to keep asking it to reply in Latin rather than English.

 

[Laurentius]

You can basically have a conversation with it, although you have to keep asking it to reply in Latin rather than English.

That was not my experience, I just kept writing in Latin and it followed suit. But I asked it in English if we could have a Latin conversation at first.
It also seems to understand corrections just fine.

Yes there is another mistake but I didn't want to correct too many things at once.

 

[cinefactus]

Today it seems happy to talk in Latin. It is a bit of a bullshit artist though. If you tell it that a word is wrong, it will tell you it is recent and not used by classicists, or mediaeval and not used in modern Latin.

 

[Laurentius]

Today it seems happy to talk in Latin. It is a bit of a bullshit artist though. If you tell it that a word is wrong, it will tell you it is recent and not used by classicists, or mediaeval and not used in modern Latin.

Alas, it must have learned that too from human Latin practitioners, it's not uncommon to get that stuff as a reply.

 

[cinefactus]

If I were a sales rep, I would be worried. It can basically mimic their replies word for word

 

[interprete]

I may be completely wrong, but since everyone says that AI is based on probability, and that it basically uses its available corpora to calculate the most probable strings of words in response to any input, then maybe it is simply unable to tell the difference between a true statement and a lie/made-up piece of information, which to an AI would be the equivalent of an educated guess?

 

[kizolk]

maybe it is simply unable to tell the difference between a true statement and a lie/made-up piece of information, which to an AI would be the equivalent of an educated guess?

Maybe but I wouldn't be surprised if there were some kind of pondering mechanism, e.g. maybe it assigns more weight to Wikipedia than to a Facebook post.

 

[Laurentius]

According to some news it seems they use underpaid Kenyan workers to make this AI more politically correct.

 

[kizolk]

According to some news it seems they use underpaid Kenyan workers to make this AI more politically correct.

Ah yes now that you say it, I seem to remember humans were involved at least initially, to grade the texts it produced, but maybe it's still the case.

 

[kizolk]

From the same video I remember that the guy asked ChatGPT to argue against global warming, but it refused saying something like "that position makes no sense, so I can't". In the end, the guy managed to make it produce such arguments by asking it something like "what would a climate change skeptic say?"