Tener gripe, tener gripa, engriparse, agriparse, estar agripado, estar griposo, agarrar la gripe, coger la influenza. In Spanish, there are at the very least a dozen methods to say somebody has the flu — relying on the nation.
Translating “cardiac arrest” into Spanish can also be tough as a result of “arresto” means getting detained by the police. Likewise, “intoxicado” means you may have meals poisoning, not that you simply’re drunk.
The examples of how translation may go awry in any language are limitless: Words tackle new meanings, idioms come and go, and communities undertake slang and dialects for on a regular basis life.
Human translators work exhausting to maintain up with the modifications, however California plans to quickly entrust that duty to know-how.
State well being coverage officers wish to harness rising synthetic intelligence know-how to translate a broad swath of paperwork and web sites associated to “health and social services information, programs, benefits and services,” according to state records. Sami Gallegos, a spokesperson for California’s Health and Human Services Agency, declined to elaborate on which paperwork and languages can be concerned, saying that info is “confidential.”
The company is in search of bids from IT companies for the bold initiative, although its timing and value just isn’t but clear. Human editors supervising the mission will oversee and edit the translations, Gallegos mentioned.
Agency officers mentioned they hope to economize and make important well being care kinds, functions, web sites, and different info obtainable to extra individuals in what they name the nation’s most linguistically various state.
The mission will begin by translating written materials. Agency Secretary Mark Ghaly mentioned the know-how, if profitable, could also be utilized extra broadly.
“How can we potentially not just transform all of our documents, but our websites, our ability to interact, even some of our call center inputs, around AI?” Ghaly requested throughout an April briefing on AI in health care in Sacramento.
But some translators and students concern the know-how lacks the nuance of human interplay and isn’t prepared for the problem. Turning this delicate work over to machines may create errors in wording and understanding, they are saying — finally making info much less correct and fewer accessible to sufferers.
“AI cannot replace human compassion, empathy, and transparency, meaningful gestures and tones,” mentioned Rithy Lim, a Fresno-based medical and authorized interpreter for 30 years who makes a speciality of Khmer, the principle language of Cambodia.
Artificial intelligence is the science of designing computer systems that emulate human pondering by reasoning, problem-solving, and understanding language. A sort of synthetic intelligence generally known as generative AI, or GenAI, wherein computer systems are skilled utilizing huge quantities of knowledge to “learn” the which means of issues and reply to prompts, is driving a wave of funding, led by such corporations as Open AI and Google.
AI is shortly being built-in into well being care, together with programs that diagnose diabetic retinopathy, analyze mammograms, and connect patients with nurses remotely. Promotors of the know-how usually make the grandiose declare that quickly everybody could have their very own “AI doctor.”
AI additionally has been a recreation changer in translation. ChatGPT, Google’s Neural Machine Translation, and Open Source are usually not solely quicker than older applied sciences akin to Google Translate, however they’ll course of enormous volumes of content material and draw upon an enormous database of phrases to just about mimic human translation.
Whereas an expert human translator may want three hours to translate a 1,600-word doc, AI can do it in a minute.
Arjun “Raj” Manrai, an assistant professor of biomedical informatics at Harvard Medical School and the deputy editor of New England Journal of Medicine AI, mentioned using AI know-how represents a pure development in medical translation, on condition that sufferers already use Google Translate and AI platforms to translate for themselves and their family members.
“Patients are not waiting,” he mentioned.
He mentioned GenAI could possibly be significantly helpful on this context.
These translations “can deliver real value to patients by simplifying complex medical information and making it more accessible,” he mentioned.
In its bidding paperwork, the state says the aim of the mission is to extend “speed, efficiency, and consistency of translations, and generate improvements in language access” in a state the place 1 in 3 individuals converse a language apart from English, and greater than 200 languages are spoken.
In May 2023, the state Health and Human Services Agency adopted a “language access policy” that requires its departments to translate all “vital” paperwork into at the very least the highest 5 languages spoken by Californians with restricted English proficiency. At the time, these languages had been Spanish, Chinese, Tagalog, Vietnamese, and Korean.
Examples of important paperwork embody utility kinds for state applications, notices about eligibility for advantages, and public web site content material.
Currently, human translators produce these translations. With AI, extra paperwork could possibly be translated into extra languages.
A survey conducted by the California Health Care Foundation late final yr discovered that 30% of Spanish audio system have issue explaining their well being points and issues to a physician, in contrast with 16% of English audio system.
Health fairness advocates say AI will assist shut that hole.
“This technology is a very powerful tool in the area of language access,” mentioned Sandra R. Hernández, president and CEO of the inspiration. “In good hands, it has many opportunities to expand the translation capability to address inequities.”
But Hernández cautioned that AI translations will need to have human oversight to really seize which means.
“The human interface is very important to make sure you get the accuracy and the cultural nuances reflected,” she mentioned.
Lim recalled an occasion wherein a affected person’s daughter translated preoperative directions to her mom the evening earlier than surgical procedure. Instead of translating the directions as “you cannot eat” after a sure hour, she instructed her mother, “You should not eat.”
The mom ate breakfast, and the surgical procedure needed to be rescheduled.
“Even a few words that change meaning could have a drastic impact on the way people consume the information,” mentioned Sejin Paik, a doctoral candidate in digital journalism, human-computer interplay, and rising media at Boston University.
Paik, who grew up talking Korean, additionally identified that AI fashions are sometimes skilled from a Western point of view. The information that drives the translations filters languages by way of an English perspective, “which could result in misinterpretations of the other language,” she mentioned. Amid this fast-changing panorama, “we need more diverse voices involved, more people thinking about the ethical concepts, how we best forecast the impact of this technology.”
Manrai pointed to different flaws on this nascent know-how that should be addressed. For occasion, AI generally invents sentences or phrases that aren’t within the authentic textual content, doubtlessly creating false info — a phenomenon AI scientists call “hallucination” or “confabulation.”
Ching Wong, government director of the Vietnamese Community Health Promotion Project on the University of California-San Francisco, has been translating well being content material from English into Vietnamese and Chinese for 30 years.
He offered examples of nuances in language which may confuse AI translation applications. Breast most cancers, as an example, is named “chest cancer” in Chinese, he mentioned.
And “you” has totally different meanings in Vietnamese, relying on an individual’s rating within the household and neighborhood. If a physician makes use of “you” incorrectly with a affected person, it could possibly be offensive, Wong mentioned.
But Ghaly emphasised that the alternatives outweigh the drawbacks. He mentioned the state ought to “cultivate innovation” to assist susceptible populations achieve higher entry to care and sources.
And he was clear: “We will not replace humans.”
This article was produced by KFF Health News, which publishes California Healthline, an editorially impartial service of the California Health Care Foundation.
Paula Andalo:
[email protected],
@paula_andalo
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