[bena]

> While each generation is better than the previous, the increments are decreasing.

Diminishing returns. Getting 90% of the way there is easier than getting that last 10%. Because once you take care of all of the easy problems like simple word substitution and some of the more troublesome problems like basic syntax, you start finding yourself facing the really hard problems. Stuff like idioms or words with multiple connotations in one language but lack them in another language.

And also there's the issue is that we currently don't have the skill to articulate what's missing. As a species. We haven't advanced our knowledge of our own thought processes to explain exactly how a certain bit of translated text just doesn't work. We know it doesn't, we know it should be like "this" instead, but we don't actually know why in a way we can describe to others.

But I think that's one of the things about AI tools, by developing them we get to learn about ourselves.