When walking around a foreign shopping mall, Google is your best friend. Since 2006, it can provide a quick translation of the ingredients of products, restaurant menus and many other examples. Four years later, in 2010, Google introduced the world to Google Goggles, a feature that is now integrated within Google Translate. You basically press the camera button of Google Translate and scan any label or text to get a translation without having to retype a word or being forced to download a certain keyboard to insert letters like the æ, ġ or ř.
This makes me think about certain patterns in (other) technological developments throughout time. For instance, the first passenger airline pilots did not have the same luxuries as modern-day pilots have today, like the autopilot or a radar. In addition, most of us do not use real maps anymore to navigate, since Google Maps will find you the shortest route that will also account for traffic jams. When technology enables people to become more efficient or when it can perform certain actions better than humans do, technology (e.g. robots, AI etc.) will usually assist or replace those actions (Chui et al., 2016). My question is, can this example be translated to the abovementioned situation of learning a foreign language if technology exceeds human capabilities?
Now, a decade later, we have been introduced to many more developments on this area. Hitherto, a lot of new soft- and hardware innovations have been launched to assist us with learning or speaking foreign languages. One promising innovative product is the “Electronic Language Translator”, a handheld device that instantly translates a sentence you speak into it. This development already makes me question if soon a more advance version of such a device (or an application) will just become the standard form of communication between people that do not speak each other’s tongue.
Critics that do think that learning a language will never become obsolete, oftentimes highlight the fact that a culture and a language have a very close connection. Thus, making it a requirement to get a “taste” of foreign cultures. Although, I am not denying this obvious fact, I believe that there are other ways to connect with people and learn more about their culture. For example, through tasting local food, participating in local festivities and holidays or listening to their local music. In addition, others address the counterargument that learning a new language will make you smarter (Mackey, 2014). However, in my opinion there are many other activities that will contribute to your brain development. To me, sticking to the traditional way of learning a new language, is like using real maps to navigate. It might give you a “more real” or a more nostalgic feeling, that is fun for certain occasions. However, I think that the necessity of learning languages will become obsolete.
Furthermore, Elon Musk recently made a prediction about his neurotechnology company Neuralink. With the head implant chips that his company is developing; Musk is aiming to revolutionize humankind as we know it. First, they aim to understand and cure brain related diseases. But more futuristically, he predicted that within five to ten years, we no longer need human language. While referring to the movie The Matrix, he said that with a fully developed Neuralink chip, one will be able to simply download a language and then upload it to your brains (Embury-Dennis, 2020). But Elon Musk also has other plans for the language of the future. Since, language basically is a proxy to interact between brains, directly connecting these brains, will cause language to lose its function in that process.
Since everyone will be able to upload information to their brains, it will change the way we value information for good. Of course, provided that, this device will be available to everyone. Although, the whole AI symbiosis seems to be a bit too farfetched to me, developments on this area will also contribute to the discussed topic in this blog (Brown, 2020; Embury-Dennis, 2020). Who knows what the (far) future holds, but the idea itself is simply mind-blowing.
Do you think learning languages will become obsolete?
Bibliography
Brown, M. (2020). NEURALINK: 3 NEUROSCIENTISTS REACT TO ELON MUSK’S BRAIN CHIP REVEAL. Retrieved from: https://www.inverse.com/innovation/neuralink-neuroscientists.
Chui, M., Manyika, J., & Miremadi, M. (2016). Where machines could replace humans—and where they can’t (yet). McKinsey Quarterly, 30(2), 1-9.
Embury-Dennis, T. (2020). ELON MUSK PREDICTS HUMAN LANGUAGE WILL BE OBSOLETE IN AS LITTLE AS FIVE YEARS: ‘WE COULD STILL DO IT FOR SENTIMENTAL REASONS’. Retrieved from: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/elon-musk-joe-rogan-podcast-language-neuralink-grimes-baby-a9506451.html.
Mackey, A. (2014). What happens in the brain when you learn a language?. Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/sep/04/what-happens-to-the-brain-language-learning.
Hi Rik,
I felt good after reading your conclusion. Haven’t we all struggled with speaking a foreign language, especially in countries where English is not taught in school as much? I see myself sitting again in a restaurant of a Spanish speaking country, trying to translate what the waiter is saying, using Google Translate. It surely diminishes some of the experience and hopefully Neuralink will solve provide the solution to it. I can even imagine that Neuralink will download a broad range of information, besides languages, such as a book or a lecture.
Though I wonder, although sometimes not pleasant, isn’t it often wonderful to learn new things? As Ralph Waldo Emerson stated: ‘life is a journey, not a destination’. The journey of learning a new language feels to me like a great discovery, especially due to some differences caused by culture. This can be extended to many more applications. It’s not as fun to immediately know how to play the violin, that would be quite boring to be honest. Our hobbies would disappear.
Further, I read that you would rather experience cultures, without the language involved. However, I can only imagine that cultures would disappear. The moment the world communicates via chips, a way to express yourself would also disappear, and the world would become monocultural. Hence, the food might perhaps be still there, though the story behind it has faded…
In any case, I can only see languages become more obsolete, since these advances are in fact incremental, and seemingly incremental positive changes could be negative in the long run. With that in mind, I hope we will find a way to incorporate the story behind the language in our heads, along with the language, so that we’re still inspired and interested in one another.
Anyway, thanks for the interesting read, let’s see what the future beholds!