only time i will endorse putting hypermodern memes/slang/references into historical adaptation stuff is with shakespeare. so many of his jokes are his contemporary equivalent of that anyway. he would have loved secret third thing. he would have loved counting or not counting gang violence
Love it when you do a quiz and it’s obvious what the answers correlate to. U know what I mean. The quiz will be like… r u a mermaid or a vampire… and the questions are like
Do u like the ocean
1. Omg yes I love the ocean I could live there forever
2. It’s ok
3. Not a fan of the ocean
4. Fuck the ocean unless it’s made of blood which btw I love to drink
There seems to be a misconception about Grace's translation software that is bothering me more and more and we need to address:
It is *not* AI. It is not """interpreting""" Rocky's words/meaning. It only picks up literal words.
This is how it works:
Rocky isn't saying "My loneliness knows no bounds, and I have forgotten my soul in the endless abyss" which the translator outputs as "Rocky in space too long"
Rocky is literally saying "... Rocky in space too long" knowing that that's the only words the translator has to draw from.
It's a bit terrifying to me how quickly people are just accepting "yeah computers must be intuiting basic meaning" because that's the opposite of how it works. They don't "understand" anything. They take gads of data and turn it into something that looks like it has meaning, not the other way around. I know I'm fighting a losing battle here, and maybe I'm just being a pedantic asshole, but god do I hate how pervasive this misconception is.
So much this. Rocky's weird language quirks are because he's simplifying and restructuring his language to make it easy for Grace and/or the computer to pick up.
Rocky is doing the hard translation work in his head before he speaks because Grace is learning and the computer can only regurgitate words that have already been saved — in the order that Rocky says them.
Like when you have a friend who is learning your language, and you slow down and use simple words/sentence structure and fewer slang/jargon words to make it easier for them.
Because hearing is Eridians' primary sense, they have a better memory for sounds, which means Rocky picks up English quicker than Grace can pick up Eridian.
In the book, there is no text-to-speech involved, Grace records Rocky's vocab into a spreadsheet, which he uses for reference on the fly and also as a DIY duolingo for Eridian practice. The movie just adds a speech generator (which is a pre-recorded soundbank provided by a NASA journalist, played by James Ortiz, lol).
But it's doing the same thing — just out loud for the audience's benefit (and so Grace doesn't have to be running back and forth to his spreadsheet in the early days). It matches soundwaves that Rocky generates to the vocabulary spreadsheet and then pulls the corresponding English word from the soundbank.
Obviously it *should* sound very early GPS voice 🤣 because it's word-by-word without infection, but although Ortiz did try that a bit, it wasn't working well on-camera. So they turned him loose to give Rocky's voice personality. And we can suspend our disbelief for it because he's *fantastic*.
But especially when writing for Rocky in fics, we need to remember exactly what's happening, otherwise it won't sound authentic.
Mary's voice is likewise not really ai. It's a voice assistant with a prerecorded soundbank as well. It can really only respond as programmed.
it never even occurred to me that the tools used for translation could be misconstrued as AI - we see Grace doing on-the-fly data entry for several scenes after meeting Rocky. But my own sense of surprise aside, I think that describing Rocky's speech and sound processing/patterning abilities in the way OP has opens up some fascinating possibility, most importantly that:
I bet the Eridians' homophone game is bonkers.
LOVE this idea. I enjoy all fics about the Eridian language, but I haven't seen much in terms of Eridian pov on Grace's interpretation of Eridian. This would be super cool to explore.
There seems to be a misconception about Grace's translation software that is bothering me more and more and we need to address:
It is *not* AI. It is not """interpreting""" Rocky's words/meaning. It only picks up literal words.
This is how it works:
Rocky isn't saying "My loneliness knows no bounds, and I have forgotten my soul in the endless abyss" which the translator outputs as "Rocky in space too long"
Rocky is literally saying "... Rocky in space too long" knowing that that's the only words the translator has to draw from.
It's a bit terrifying to me how quickly people are just accepting "yeah computers must be intuiting basic meaning" because that's the opposite of how it works. They don't "understand" anything. They take gads of data and turn it into something that looks like it has meaning, not the other way around. I know I'm fighting a losing battle here, and maybe I'm just being a pedantic asshole, but god do I hate how pervasive this misconception is.
been really enjoying pretending not to know what pokemon are when i sell the tcg packs to gambling-addicted chuds. they ask me for a tin from behind the counter and i say "which one? the ghost or the tiger?" i called Zygarde a 'green doggy :)' and the guy's face got really red
tumblr has like genuinely ingrained in me that the idea of being fat isn't just neutral but it's actually awesome and it's done more for my self-esteem than years of eating disorder treatment
I just love Richie's smile here and look at Ruth's. THEY'RE SUCH FRIENDS LORDS OW. at least they get to hang out as ghosts in the school right
hate when i get a password wrong and the browser goes "heyyyy :) do you want me to save those credentials you entered :)" like i am already humiliated why must you rub salt into that wound firefox
rubysapphrald
only time i will endorse putting hypermodern memes/slang/references into historical adaptation stuff is with shakespeare. so many of his jokes are his contemporary equivalent of that anyway. he would have loved secret third thing. he would have loved counting or not counting gang violence
