I’ve been reading a story on The Register about the predicaments that Facebook is experiencing due to the whole “draw the prophet” competition. A single sentence got my attention, its subtle meaning not being related to the main storyline:

“BBC Urdu reports — according to a Google Translation — that Pakistan's Deputy Attorney General has launched a criminal investigation against Zuckerberg and others in response to Facebook hosting a "Draw Muhammad" contest on its site late last month”

Free brownie point to anyone who notices something horribly wrong here (and I am not talking about religion).

I am of course referring to the whole “according to Google Translation” business or as one of my fellow forum dweller noticed: “Since when is Google Translate a reliable news source?!?” 

Make no mistake, this post is not about bashing Google; on the contrary I think Google Translate is an awesome service. I generally hate cloud, but Google’s Translate (next to Google Earth) gives it some credence in the world. It helped me with a bunch of German and Japanese sites and if nothing else it helped me understand the ballpark story of what’s written. But Google Translate is not a credible translator, it never was, it’s not now and it’s doubtful if it ever will be no matter how smart or capable dev team is and no matter how much money is sank into it. Automated translator does not grab context, does not understand nuances and cultural specifics of the author nor the recipient. It does and will make translation mistakes, it does and will inadvertently alter the context, it does and will fail to observe transitions in cultural protocols. Not even Google is making such a claim about its service.

So can we trust it in communication sensitive situations? Hell, NO. You cannot put president Obama and president Medvedev in a room and have them chat over Google Translate, that is a sure recipe for a World War III. So what happened? How did we reach a point in which a news delivery site uses automated Google Translate for a process of conveying a touchy subject with potential religious backlash? What, no Pakistani translators in the UK? Yeah right, even if so, then no Pakistani employees or firends with working knowledge of Urdu to lend a hand? Or is it that we just got so used to technology that we started forgetting about its limitation and started giving it anthropomorphic attributes to that degree that a new age "journalist" gives it same credence as it would a living thinking person? How many days or months before we all forget about limitations and start trusting automated translators implicitly to the point where human lives will be at stake?