{"id":198,"date":"2024-11-28T22:07:02","date_gmt":"2024-11-28T22:07:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/russiantranslators.org\/?p=198"},"modified":"2024-11-28T22:07:03","modified_gmt":"2024-11-28T22:07:03","slug":"can-ai-teach-languages-the-difference-between-a-model-and-true-communication","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/russiantranslators.org\/?p=198","title":{"rendered":"Can AI Teach Languages? The Difference Between a Model and True Communication"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

True words do not exist without a body.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can AI teach languages? Amid all the hype around AI, when I heard about plans to use AI models to teach children language skills, I was more than skeptical. If you ask ChatGPT what it is, it will humbly reply, \u201cI am a language model.\u201d What does it mean? What\u2019s the difference between Language and a \u201clanguage model\u201d?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A model is an image<\/em> of a thing \u2014 a representation. A model of a car is not a car. It\u2019s like a car but not a car. You cannot ride in it.<\/strong> A model of an apple is like an apple, but not an apple. You cannot eat it.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A model of a person (say a photo or a statue) is like a person but not a person. You cannot take it out for a coffee. A language model is like the language but not Language itself. You cannot \u201ctruly communicate\u201d using a model.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is a well-established fact that unless a child has a significant adult in their life who consistently interacts with them, their language skills will not develop. Patricia Kuhl, a prominent researcher in language acquisition writes,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHuman interaction is key to the language learning process. Infants do not learn language from television or audio recordings; they learn it from humans in real-time interactions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Language proper is always embodied<\/em>. There is no language learning apart from a human being. We do not learn a language from a machine; we learn it from people. The machine can give us a model of a language at best \u2013 not language proper. What is language proper? It\u2019s the language that comes out of the mouth of a human being.<\/a> Unless we feel a Presence behind words, words ultimately don\u2019t make sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Children learn a language from the presence<\/strong> of an adult, not from hearing or interpreting words. This is what Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, a literary theorist from Stanford, tried to impress on his students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Production of Presence: What Meaning Cannot Convey<\/em>, Gumbrecht explains:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen I read from Goethe\u2019s Faust<\/em> to my Stanford freshmen in German, a language that they do not understand, it is because I want them to experience the texture and the rhythm of the text as a \u2018material\u2019 reality, as something that cannot be reduced to meaning.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When infants hear their parents talk, they first grasp their material presence and then words. Meaning is always secondary to presence. Meaning is revealed in and through the Presence. It\u2019s the Presence that communicates, not words. This is the ultimate pattern of true communication.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is no communication apart from the embodied Presence. True communication is a mystery of an encounter;<\/a> not a process of interpreting words. Interpreting comes later. First, we must grasp the \u201cword in the flesh.\u201d What is language proper, or \u201cLanguage herself\u201d as C.S. Lewis aptly calls it in That Hideous Strength<\/em>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is an embodied Word. True words do not exist without a body. <\/a>Disembodied language is not language. It\u2019s an image, an appearance, an empty husk that we often confuse with language. It is not real food; it doesn\u2019t nourish. As Owen Barfield said in Poetic Diction<\/em>,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLanguage proper is not merely a means of communicating truth; it is itself a body of truth\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

True Language walks, talks, and dwells among us. By beholding its Presence, we learn the meaning of all things.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

True words do not exist without a body. Can AI teach languages? Amid all the hype around AI, when I heard about plans to use AI models to teach children language skills, I was more than skeptical. If you ask ChatGPT what it is, it will humbly reply, \u201cI am a language model.\u201d What does […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,8],"tags":[11,9,10],"class_list":["post-198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-thoughts-about-ai","tag-embodied-language","tag-language","tag-models","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/russiantranslators.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/russiantranslators.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/russiantranslators.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/russiantranslators.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/russiantranslators.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=198"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/russiantranslators.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":200,"href":"https:\/\/russiantranslators.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198\/revisions\/200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/russiantranslators.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/russiantranslators.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/russiantranslators.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}