T-Mobile Will Live Translate Regular Phone Calls Without an App (theverge.com)
- Reference: 0180770694
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/02/11/141215/t-mobile-will-live-translate-regular-phone-calls-without-an-app
- Source link: https://www.theverge.com/tech/877008/t-mobile-live-translation-languages-ai-network
The feature operates at the network level, so it doesn't require any specific app or device -- beta participants simply dial 87 to activate it on a call. T-Mobile President of Technology and CTO John Saw told The Verge that Live Translation works over VoLTE, VoNR and VoWiFi, meaning it isn't limited to 5G. The only requirement is that a T-Mobile customer must initiate the translation. The beta will be free, though T-Mobile has not said whether the feature will eventually be paywalled.
[1] https://www.theverge.com/tech/877008/t-mobile-live-translation-languages-ai-network
aaaaand now... (Score:2)
you can get telemarketing calls in German, Spanish, French....
yay?
In other words (Score:5, Insightful)
T-Mobile is openly admitting that they are listening to all your phone calls
Re: (Score:3)
Yes, T-Mobile is openly admitting that their network is computerized and computers process the packets that get sent to and from phones.
You know. Like all phone systems have worked since the 2000s.
Or do you think this technology requires actual human translators to be translating the conversations? Because if you think that you seriously misread the summary.
Re: (Score:2)
They are openly admitting that they have the ability to listen and record, and this shouldn't be a surprising revelation. A telco being able to route a phone call on their network past an extra hop isn't black magic. And we already know that nation state level actors spy at the telecom level.
So both the ability to and the practice of are already well established. So that someone offers a service that uses that ability isn't the part that is news.
Who's accountable when it's wrong? (Score:2)
What happens when "John is just going to kill me" -- referring to the anticipated outcome of today's fantasy football league because it looks John's players are doing exceptionally well at the moment and the speaker's are doing poorly -- is translated into "John is murdering me"? Or worse -- I'm sure anyone reading this can think of many sarcastic or idiomatic or exaggerated phrases that are likely to be mistranslated.
When that happens -- not if -- who is accountable for the consequences? Including th
Re: (Score:2)
Please refer to the contract of adhesion written on flypaper for the gory details. Look for who is the "accountability sink". Most likely is is the customer, as the company has applied a thick teflon coating with regards to accountability.
I'm curious to see... (Score:2)
how they'll navigate the legal landmines being placed here. Does AI transcription count as recording? What kind of consent is needed for this behavior to be defensible? How does one identify T-Mobile customers and refuse calls from them?
Re: (Score:3)
And how does it work in general? Friend of mine got a message from a cow orker a few weeks back "I'm going to kill you" because whatever stochastic parrot their company had gone with didn't understand the language they were using and that was the closest English equivalent it could find in its training set.
Re: I'm curious to see... (Score:5, Insightful)
I wouldn't be hugely surprised to find out they're already recording just now they can process it to flog to advertisers.
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed this is highly suspect because it is absolutely the wrong layer to do this at. We are very close if not there already to being able to do TTS -> translate -> STT with in the power and compute envelopes on a handset.
Doing it there would make it super easy for the user to turn the feature on and off on the fly. Doing it there would make, privacy and legality concerns around recording and multi-party disclosure a lot simpler. There are a lot of other experiential and legal reasons it seems way
Re: (Score:2)
> Does AI transcription count as recording
No. Why would it if it's not actually saving the conversation?
If your argument is "But it's being stored temporarily in the system so that the transcription bot can do stuff", do you think that the phone network still works by connecting people directly via an electrical wire? The moment phone companies switched to packet switching some kind of temporary storage became normal. No courts ever intervened and had then done so they'd have sided with the phone compani