[raverbashing]

" the use of statistical models that have no biological basis."

this is irrelevant

This is like saying a computer using an x86 processor is different, from the point of view of the user than an ARM computer, beyond differences in software

Or like saying DNA is needed for "data storage" in biological systems and not another technology

Sure, you can get inspiration from biology, but doesn't necessarily mean you have to copy it.

""I need to meet up" to Chinese. Google translates it to 我需要满足, meaning "I need to satisfy". This is where statistical translations fail, "

It's not really a fault of statistical translations (more likely quality of data issue), even though it has its limitations. Besides, google translation has been successful exactly because it's better than other existing methods (and Google has the resources, both in people and data to make it better)

[jacquesm]

I think that the google translator did pretty good on that fragment.

Garbage in, garbage out! If you use 'I' in a sentence fragment when you mean to use 'We' then you can't really blame the translator for getting it wrong.

'We need to meet up' is a sentence with a completely different meaning from the incorrect and semantically confusing 'I need to meet up', it really does sound as if you need to meet up to some expectation.

[trevelyan]

In further defense of Google, "I need to meet up with him" translates as 我需要与他见面.

If someone wants to attack Google's Chinese translation, it should be over snippets like 8十多万 or its failure to recognize many personal and place names which could easily be handled by a pre-processor. Google has never been competent in China in part because of their hiring decisions, but this isn't Franz Och's fault.