[leakycap]

This just tells me you don't work with multiple languages very often.

I have spoken a second language fluently since about 9. I produce work that is translated into that language regularly... by a translator.

Being able to read words does not means I understand the meaning they convey to a person who only speaks that language. These are scientific papers we're talking about, conveyed meaning is valuable and completely lost when a non-native speaker publishes machine generated output that the writer could not have written themselves.

[jltsiren]

These are scientific papers we're talking about, typically written by non-native speakers to a primarily non-native audience. Scientific writing practices have evolved over a long time to convey meaning reliably between non-native speakers. You are supposed to write directly and avoid ambiguity. To rely on literal meaning and avoid idioms used by native speakers. To repeat yourself and summarize.

Based on what I've seen, LLMs can write scientific English just fine. Some struggle with the style, preferring big pretentious words and long vague sentences. Like in some caricature of academic writing. And sometimes they struggle with the nuances of the substance, but so do editors and translators who are not experts in the field.

Scientific communication is often difficult. Sometimes everyone uses slightly different terminology. Sometimes the necessary words just don't exist in any language. Sometimes a non-native speaker struggles with the language (but they are usually aware of it). And sometimes a native speaker fails to communicate (and keeps doing that for a while), because they are not used to international audiences. I don't know how much LLMs can help, but I don't see much harm in using them either.

[stackbutterflow]

This just reminds me to never assumes someone's reality. I speak more than two languages. And I disagree.

Papers are read by all type of people, I don't know why you assume scientific papers which are almost all written in English are read solely by native English speakers.

People have been doing science in broken English, French, German, Arabic, Latin and more for as long there has been science to be made.

[leakycap]

Sounds like you would be a perfect person to help clear up misunderstandings in texts being translated if your skills are as keen as you describe.

You mention being reminded not to assume someone else's reality by our conversation--I would encourage you to also be reminded of the common fallacy where people wildly overestimate their own abilities, especially when it comes to claiming to speak/read/write multiple languages with knowledge akin to a native speaker.

It is unfortunately very common to mislead oneself about abilities when you haven't had to rely on that skillset in a real environment.

I would venture that you don't regularly work with multiple languages in your work outputs, or you would have likely received feedback by now that could help provide understanding about the nuances of language and communication.

[perching_aix]

If you disagree with the assertion that people generally have an easier time understanding language (correctly or not) than producing it, that's one thing and that's fine. But if you consider it a claim outright, and find it incorrect, then that's gonna need some beyond-anecdotal supporting evidence, or you should ask for some from the other side. Digging into each others' backgrounds is not this.

Keeping to anecdotals and opinions though, I only speak one foreign language sadly, that being English, but this effect is very familiar to me, and is also frequently demonstrated and echoed by my peers too. Even comes up with language loss, not just language learning. Goes hand-in-hand with reading, writing, listening, and speaking being very different areas of language ability too, the latter two being areas I'm personally weak in. That's already a disparity that a cursory read of your position says shouldn't exist (do correct me if I'm misinterpreting what your stance is though).

And all this is completely ignoring how even the native language output one produces can be just straight up wrong sometimes, and not faithful to intentions. I've been talking about it like there's a finish line too, but there really isn't. This is why things like mechanized math proofs are so useful. They are composed in formal languages rather than natural ones, enabling their evaluation to be automated (they are machine-checkable). No unintended semantics lost or added.

[leakycap]

> If you disagree with the assertion that people generally have an easier time understanding language (correctly or not) than producing it, that's one thing and that's fine.

I disagree with the assertion that a person should rely on an LLM as part of their ability to publish in a language they don't understand well enough themselves to complete without involving a word machine.

> Digging into each others' backgrounds is not this.

I spoke from experience and it was then skewered by someone cosplaying the duolingo owl on the internet. You can take it up with them if you have an issue.

> And all this is completely ignoring how even the native language output one produces can be just straight up wrong sometimes, and not faithful to intentions.

How does the inability you point out of even a native speaker to clearly and effectively communicate sometimes not simply make it more obvious that a person less familiar with the language should involve a person who is?

[perching_aix]

> How does the inability you point out (...) not simply make it more obvious that a person less familiar with the language should involve a person who is?

I think that's a perfectly obvious point that the person you were replying to, you, and me, are all on board with and have been throughout. Inviting their or your attention to this was not the purpose of that sentence.

> I spoke from experience

Great.

> and it was then skewered by someone cosplaying the duolingo owl on the internet. You can take it up with them if you have an issue.

But my issue was/is with you. I wanted you to stop engaging in the use of combative and emotionally charged language. I understand that you feel justified in doing so, but nevertheless, I'm asking you to please stop. It dilutes your points, and makes it significantly harder to engage them. I further don't think you guys were disagreeing nearly hard enough to justify it, but that's really not my place to say in the end.

> I disagree with the assertion that a person should rely on an LLM as part of their ability to publish in a language they don't understand well enough themselves to complete without involving a word machine.

Thanks for clarifying - it genuinely looked like you were disagreeing with what I mentioned too.

[leakycap]

> But my issue was/is with you. I wanted you to stop engaging in the use of combative and emotionally charged language.

You seem very intelligent, I truly believe your time and energy would be better spent doing literally anything else than providing me feedback on my commenting etiquette. Please, I implore you to do more with your time that will provide value! You genuinely seem smart.

(See how that felt? That's the effectiveness of telling someone on the internet you want them to behave differently. It's really pointless.)