India Develops AI-based Translator to Help Interact With Chinese Soldiers

[Theparadox]

The language barrier between the Indian and Chinese troops along either side of the international border remains a big hurdle to peaceful communication. India has taken the initiative by bridging the language barrier through an artificial intelligence-enabled Mandarin to Indian languages translator.

The Indian Army's Design Bureau has developed a robotic translator that will be used to convert Mandarin, a language spoken by China's People Liberation Army soldiers, into Indian languages. The equipment is expected to provide much-needed aid to defence forces as a lack of proper communication among soldiers of the two countries had on many occasions culminated in avoidable conflicts along the international border.

"Army Design Bureau has developed a live translator which will translate Mandarin to Indian languages. The device will be made available to the personnel deployed along the Line of Actual Control soon," a defence official told Sputnik under condition of anonymity.

Earlier, the Indian government had started a special Mandarin language learning course for the troops guarding the Chinese border, but the efforts were not all that scalable. Under this initiative, universities in India like Sanchi, Vishwa Bharati etc. had started this as a one-year course with several troops being admitted in the last two years. The purpose of the course was to make at least some of the troops deployed along the 3,488-kilometer Sino-Indian border conversant in basic Chinese

The Eastern Command of the Indian Army had also established an advanced Chinese language training lab where 125 soldiers were supposed to be trained in Mandarin annually.

Ever since the Wuhan informal summit last April, the two countries have been trying to maintain peace and tranquility at the international border through several confidence-building measures. Soldiers of the two countries celebrated the New Year at Eastern Ladakh, Tawang, and Nathu La. During the border personnel meetings which were held on several occasions, both sides had resolved to maintain peace and tranquility along the line of actual control (LAC), besides agreeing to work on enhancing mutual trust. The two countries had also resumed the annual military exercises after the Hand-in-Hand Exercise-2017 was suspended following the Doklam conflict.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in an interview this week, emphasised that he did not feel back-stabbed by China, which had earlier precipitated a crisis in Doklam.

"India should be judged on the basis of its response in Doklam. Nothing has happened with India that can be considered as deceit, but our principled position has been that we want friendly relations with neighbours," Modi said in an interview to ANI.

In June 2017, India and China were engaged in a two-month stand-off in Doklam after China had tried to change the status quo of the region through construction of a road along a critical site — an area that lies between Tibet's Chumbi Valley to the north, Bhutan's Ha Valley to the east and the Indian state of Sikkim to the west.

https://sputniknews.com/asia/201901041071209076-india-china-border-ai/

 

[Tshering22]

This is a good initiative. It will not only reduce the workload of soldiers to learn more than what they already are mandated to learn, but will also help in unnecessarily creating any communication issues of unwanted escalations at the border due to language barrier.

It might need a few iterations, but if the algorithm is good enough, updating it would be easy and over time, the software would be able to self-evolve with minute tweaks and improvements.

 

[srshkmr]

This is a good initiative. It will not only reduce the workload of soldiers to learn more than what they already are mandated to learn, but will also help in unnecessarily creating any communication issues of unwanted escalations at the border due to language barrier.

It might need a few iterations, but if the algorithm is good enough, updating it would be easy and over time, the software would be able to self-evolve with minute tweaks and improvements.

And can include other languages as well

 

[Tshering22]

And can include other languages as well

The only other language I see that would need addition would be Burmese as everything else is mutually intelligible: Bangla, Urdu/Punjabi, Nepali/Hindi, Dzongkha (by native soldiers in SSB), Sinhala/Tamil (down south by coast Guard) etc.

The only language that is totally different from all this is Mandarin, which is why we need to get this kind of technology in ASAP.

 

[DESERT FIGHTER]

The language barrier between the Indian and Chinese troops along either side of the international border remains a big hurdle to peaceful communication. India has taken the initiative by bridging the language barrier through an artificial intelligence-enabled Mandarin to Indian languages translator.

The Indian Army's Design Bureau has developed a robotic translator that will be used to convert Mandarin, a language spoken by China's People Liberation Army soldiers, into Indian languages. The equipment is expected to provide much-needed aid to defence forces as a lack of proper communication among soldiers of the two countries had on many occasions culminated in avoidable conflicts along the international border.

"Army Design Bureau has developed a live translator which will translate Mandarin to Indian languages. The device will be made available to the personnel deployed along the Line of Actual Control soon," a defence official told Sputnik under condition of anonymity.

Earlier, the Indian government had started a special Mandarin language learning course for the troops guarding the Chinese border, but the efforts were not all that scalable. Under this initiative, universities in India like Sanchi, Vishwa Bharati etc. had started this as a one-year course with several troops being admitted in the last two years. The purpose of the course was to make at least some of the troops deployed along the 3,488-kilometer Sino-Indian border conversant in basic Chinese

The Eastern Command of the Indian Army had also established an advanced Chinese language training lab where 125 soldiers were supposed to be trained in Mandarin annually.

Ever since the Wuhan informal summit last April, the two countries have been trying to maintain peace and tranquility at the international border through several confidence-building measures. Soldiers of the two countries celebrated the New Year at Eastern Ladakh, Tawang, and Nathu La. During the border personnel meetings which were held on several occasions, both sides had resolved to maintain peace and tranquility along the line of actual control (LAC), besides agreeing to work on enhancing mutual trust. The two countries had also resumed the annual military exercises after the Hand-in-Hand Exercise-2017 was suspended following the Doklam conflict.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in an interview this week, emphasised that he did not feel back-stabbed by China, which had earlier precipitated a crisis in Doklam.

"India should be judged on the basis of its response in Doklam. Nothing has happened with India that can be considered as deceit, but our principled position has been that we want friendly relations with neighbours," Modi said in an interview to ANI.

In June 2017, India and China were engaged in a two-month stand-off in Doklam after China had tried to change the status quo of the region through construction of a road along a critical site — an area that lies between Tibet's Chumbi Valley to the north, Bhutan's Ha Valley to the east and the Indian state of Sikkim to the west.

https://sputniknews.com/asia/201901041071209076-india-china-border-ai/

Such softwares are already commercially available on smartphones.

 

[Pakhtoon yum]

The language barrier between the Indian and Chinese troops along either side of the international border remains a big hurdle to peaceful communication. India has taken the initiative by bridging the language barrier through an artificial intelligence-enabled Mandarin to Indian languages translator.

The Indian Army's Design Bureau has developed a robotic translator that will be used to convert Mandarin, a language spoken by China's People Liberation Army soldiers, into Indian languages. The equipment is expected to provide much-needed aid to defence forces as a lack of proper communication among soldiers of the two countries had on many occasions culminated in avoidable conflicts along the international border.

"Army Design Bureau has developed a live translator which will translate Mandarin to Indian languages. The device will be made available to the personnel deployed along the Line of Actual Control soon," a defence official told Sputnik under condition of anonymity.

Earlier, the Indian government had started a special Mandarin language learning course for the troops guarding the Chinese border, but the efforts were not all that scalable. Under this initiative, universities in India like Sanchi, Vishwa Bharati etc. had started this as a one-year course with several troops being admitted in the last two years. The purpose of the course was to make at least some of the troops deployed along the 3,488-kilometer Sino-Indian border conversant in basic Chinese

The Eastern Command of the Indian Army had also established an advanced Chinese language training lab where 125 soldiers were supposed to be trained in Mandarin annually.

Ever since the Wuhan informal summit last April, the two countries have been trying to maintain peace and tranquility at the international border through several confidence-building measures. Soldiers of the two countries celebrated the New Year at Eastern Ladakh, Tawang, and Nathu La. During the border personnel meetings which were held on several occasions, both sides had resolved to maintain peace and tranquility along the line of actual control (LAC), besides agreeing to work on enhancing mutual trust. The two countries had also resumed the annual military exercises after the Hand-in-Hand Exercise-2017 was suspended following the Doklam conflict.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in an interview this week, emphasised that he did not feel back-stabbed by China, which had earlier precipitated a crisis in Doklam.

"India should be judged on the basis of its response in Doklam. Nothing has happened with India that can be considered as deceit, but our principled position has been that we want friendly relations with neighbours," Modi said in an interview to ANI.

In June 2017, India and China were engaged in a two-month stand-off in Doklam after China had tried to change the status quo of the region through construction of a road along a critical site — an area that lies between Tibet's Chumbi Valley to the north, Bhutan's Ha Valley to the east and the Indian state of Sikkim to the west.

https://sputniknews.com/asia/201901041071209076-india-china-border-ai/

Cough google translate cough

 

[Tshering22]

Cough google translate cough

Good luck trying to use Google translate for military protocols.

Google Translate is designed for civilian applications and is not accurate beyond a certain point. I mean things like connotations such as "aankh maarna" become "beating the eye" to Google translate. I tried it myself sometime back. This is of course just a simple example. There are a lot more serious and complex scenarios we can expect with soldiers involved.

I am sure that Google is working for its commercial applications and has access to a lot of funding, but its interface presented in Google Translate format doesn't work, especially in the kind of environment that Indian and Chinese troops operate (internet is an issue in those areas).

Such softwares are already commercially available on smartphones.

And to avail those, you need encrypted internet serivice.

Mind you, Sino-Indian border is nothing like the Attari-Wagah border.

It is barren and terribly desolate. There are military provisions for communication through radio frequencies but having broadband in that area is not exactly ideal.

Hence the AI-based self-learning software.

 

[Pakhtoon yum]

Good luck trying to use Google translate for military protocols.

Google Translate is designed for civilian applications and is not accurate beyond a certain point. I mean things like connotations such as "aankh maarna" become "beating the eye" to Google translate. I tried it myself sometime back. This is of course just a simple example. There are a lot more serious and complex scenarios we can expect with soldiers involved.

I am sure that Google is working for its commercial applications and has access to a lot of funding, but its interface presented in Google Translate format doesn't work, especially in the kind of environment that Indian and Chinese troops operate (internet is an issue in those areas).



And to avail those, you need encrypted internet serivice.

Mind you, Sino-Indian border is nothing like the Attari-Wagah border.

It is barren and terribly desolate. There are military provisions for communication through radio frequencies but having broadband in that area is not exactly ideal.

Hence the AI-based self-learning software.

Bingo, internet is an issue otherwise softwares already exist. Would have been nice if countries could make internet available all over the country. It's like one of lifes needs along with food, water and whatnot

 

[Tshering22]

Bingo, internet is an issue otherwise softwares already exist. Would have been nice if countries could make internet available all over the country. It's like one of lifes needs along with food, water and whatnot

Not really in that terrain.

Believe me it is very hostile in terms of climatic and atmospheric conditions.

Border troops on both sides barely get enough favourable conditions to complete their shifts - forget fighting.

I live under a 100 (aerial) Kms away from China border and three most crucial borders are in my state.

 

[GumNaam]

Chinese soldier to indian soldier: 嘿弯腰!!!
Translation: OYE, BEND OVER!!!

 

[AyanRay]

Chinese soldier to indian soldier: 嘿弯腰!!!
Translation: OYE, BEND OVER!!!

And here comes the cheerleaders