[YeGoblynQueenne]

The gist of his post seems to be:

>> If mediocre translations can be done now without the requirements Hofstadter imposes, there is just no good reason to expect that excellent translations can't be eventually be achieved without them, at least in the same degree that Hofstadter claims.

Of course, there's no good reason to expect that excellent translations _can_ eventually be achieved in this manner, either. We just have to wait and see, according to Jeffrey Shallit.

On the other hand, we can already see that GT is not just "mediocre"; it fails in specific ways that suggest fundamental weaknesses of the way it does translation. By analogy, it's like having a flying machine that can only fly as long as it's anchored to the ground. There's no good reason to expect that such a machine will ever be able to do anything else than fly around the same spot.

So Hofstatder's article is not a discussion of requirements for good translation, only. It's also a discussion of limitations of Google Translate, that have to be overcome before it can consistently offer good translations.