ChatGPT: Driving a paradigm shift for effective global communication and multilingual content creation

This past week, we saw a lot of buzz on social media about ChatGPT, a large language model (LLM) technology developed by OpenAI. After I checked out some expert opinions like this one, I decided to dive in and take a closer look at this development in the world of AI and language.?

So, what's the big deal?

Language is one of the obvious barriers when it comes to global communication and cultural understanding. That’s why we, professionals in the language industry, are here providing technologies, programs, and the actual content in other languages in an effort of breaking that barrier.?

The way we have been solving this issue was by mainly translating it into the language used in a market, then adapting it culturally and making sure it functions in the market where that content was going to be used. This is because developing the same content from scratch in each locale is typically more costly and time-consuming.

Since the 90s, we've been incorporating machine translation into our workflows in an effort of raising productivity and throughput. Machine translation, whether statistical or neural, is a classic example of natural language processing (NLP), a subfield of AI. So there is nothing new about using AI for our content creation.

The big difference, though, is LLM may be able to provide original content for each locale quickly and inexpensively, making the step of translation unnecessary.

My Teriyaki Chicken Conversations with ChatGPT

I experienced this firsthand while preparing my first Christmas dinner for this weekend for a friend who won't be in town for the holiday. At my daughter's request, I decided to cook Teriyaki Chicken. When I was thinking about what to offer with it, I thought it would be fun to test ChatGPT. So I asked it a simple question: "What is the best wine for Teriyaki Chicken?" The revelation came when I came up with the idea of asking this same question in my four languages: English, Spanish, French, and Japanese.?

The responses I received were tailored to the specific language and culture of each country/territory/culture. For example, when I asked in French, ChatGPT recommended some wines from their regions. When I asked in Japanese, it included recommendations for sake along with white wine because I asked a little vaguely - "drinks." And when I asked in English and Spanish, it suggested wines with different types of grapes. ?

As I said earlier, in businesses, when we needed to go to other markets, we used to use translations instead of generating original content generated in that language from scratch in order to save effort, money, and time when we had only or mostly humans at the task. But now, the situation has begun to change with this type of tool.

It's just a chatbot from a company - is it?

ChatGPT is merely the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the potential of AI and language. Some companies are already implementing an LLM technology like this one and creating all source content in multiple languages simultaneously and very quickly. If I imagine other superpowers in the world including the big five tech companies, the big four consultancy firms, and other powerful industrial companies, what they are spending and doing behind the scenes should be amazing. It is rumored that Google LaMDA is much more advanced than ChatGPT. And if we consider the capabilities of Apple Siri and Amazon Alexa, it's clear that this technology has a lot of potentials.??

In conclusion, the use of AI in language and content generation is not at all new, but recent developments like ChatGPT show the potential for a paradigm shift in how we produce our work. The ability of AI to tailor responses to specific languages and cultures has significant implications for the language industry. It's time to start to question why we do what we do now, instead of only blindly making what we do efficiently. But if you are in the language industry and wondering if our work will ever disappear, rest assured we will not only survive but thrive in this! If you are interested, please read my previous article: Why the language industry with human linguists will thrive in the age of AI.

I wish everyone a great holiday season and a prosperous 2023.

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Yuka Nakasone?- Chief Strategist at?Global Bridge. With over 30 years of experience in international business, Yuka helps SMEs in the retail industry including retailers, distributors, and retail technology companies to optimize their global operations and grow internationally with digitization and localization through her consultancy company, Global Bridge. Born and raised in Japan, she started her globalization career in Boston, MA, USA, and now enjoys a borderless life with her own small Franco-Japanese family on the Mediterranean coast near Barcelona, Spain.