LANGUAGE LESS FOREIGN


Automatic speech recognition


ENGLISH


Audio stream


SPEECH-TO-SPEECH TRANSLATION


Optical character recognition


Two-way machine translation


ENGLISH TEXT


Image TEXT-TO-TEXT TRANSLATION LOUD AND CLEAR


MFLTS is a Soldier-mounted system that provides speech-to-speech translation in two spoken languages, Iraqi Arabic and Pashto, and text-to-text translation in Modern Standard Arabic. The Army plans to add more languages to the system. The two translation functions process language in different ways, but both rely on advances in machine-learning technology to deliver accurate translations. (Graphic by U.S. Army Acquisition Support Center)


Transcription Text file Transcription Text file


Digitized speech


Transcription Transcription Text file Audio file


Two-way machine translation Speech synthesis


IRAQI ARABIC; PASHTO


MACHINE LEARNING 101 Te machine learning that supports the developments in human- language technology underpinning MFLTS draws on computer science, neuroscience, and artificial-intelligence research and theory on ways to enable a computer to learn or do something on its own without explicit programming by a human to do so. Without machine learning, MFLTS could be only as good as the humans who feed the system data and statistical informa- tion; thus there would be a built-in limit to how well it could translate.


Artificial neural networks, based loosely on the human brain’s structure, are what make machine learning possible and offer the potential to create truly artificial intelligence sometime in the future. Te networks that power machine intelligence learn in a very humanlike way: As Gideon Lewis-Kraus wrote in a Dec. 14, 2016, New York Times Magazine article about Google’s work on machine learning, they “acquaint themselves with the world via trial and error, as toddlers do.”


Te way that MFLTS is put together, these two parts are equally involved in translating. When a Soldier starts a translation ses- sion, the manager part of the app starts a session between the Soldier and the language pack’s translation tools that the Sol- dier will need to get the job done. During translation, the app captures input, manages processes and provides the translation to the user.


MAKING MAGIC Te real magic of MFLTS lives deep within the language packs, where science and art come together to enable software to hear, understand and interpret as much like a human linguist as possible.


Inside language packs are two or more language components that contain what are called “probabilistic models,” developed by software scientists and engineers using advanced machine learning techniques. An example of a probabilistic model is the way a smartphone “guesses” what you are typing before you’ve finished.


84 Army AL&T Magazine October-December 2017


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