Chinese whisper

Posted by Gary on November 11, 2001

In Reply to: Chinese whisper posted by Elaine on November 11, 2001

: help, could someone give me an example of a chinese whisper, famous or not. I already know Send re-enforcements, we're going to advance.To-(Send two and sixpence, we're going to a dance.)

There are examples of these from the artificial intelligence community where computers are being programmed to recognise speech, or more likely wreck a nice peach.

The story goes like this. An early translation programme was given the task of translating 'the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak' into Russian and then back to English. After the two translations it came out with 'the vodka is excellent but the meat is rotten', or some such.

Gary