My letter (13 February) included an English translation, although only the Welsh was published. In response to this, Watson (Letters, 17 February) requested the conversion of my words into Welsh – something I had already provided.
I sent a second request to the Guardian asking them to submit my translation. However, I didn’t receive any response. Hopefully, Ian’s note presumes to be influential in flipping the letters editor’s perspective positively.
“May I, thank you very much, from now on write to you in the Welsh language that you are so enthusiastic about – an excellent editorial article was composed singing its praises? The language of heaven!”
Also, my letter has elicited great joy on social media platforms devoted to the Welsh language. Interestingly, my friend who doesn’t understand Welsh got accurate English text of the letter when using Google Translate.
With the keywords he had been given, he translated them into another language and then fed the lingual output to ChatGPT–an AI chatbot–to allow it to construct a story based on his letter.
Alarmingly, yet predictably, the chatbot generated utter nonsense in which it was imagined that the Guardian editor and I fell madly in love due to a mutual fondness for the “language of heaven,” thus living blissfully together forever.
I sadly cannot tell you whether anyone has officially attested if Wales is spoken in heaven; however, I can say that ChatGPT did not seem to recognize “iaith yr nefoedd” (which means the language of heaven) as a term for Welsh.
ChatGPT’s attempt to decipher and emulate the language of heaven is a fascinating and thought-provoking exploration of the intersection between technology, religion, and language. While the results of this experiment may not have been entirely successful in creating a fully comprehensible language, it raises important questions about the limitations of technology and the unique qualities of human language and communication.
As we continue to explore the boundaries of artificial intelligence and language processing, it will be important to consider how these technologies can complement and enhance our human abilities rather than simply attempting to replicate them.
Source: the Guardian
