How AI Language Translation Endangers Migrants
Recently a quiet, but significant story emerged regarding how AI software translation can put migrants, especially asylum seekers, in danger. The worse news? It already has.
Hello, friends,
Last week we talked about the lack of Democratic Debates. This week, I’d like to talk about a situation representing a systemic failure that came to my attention; one that is flying under the radar and maybe deserves a little bit of a heads up.
On April 26th, the Respond Crisis Translation organization’s Twitter account linked to an article by Rest Of World about an Afghan-language-speaking translator named Uma Mirkhail, whose client was denied asylum based on a curious set of circumstances: Her story was different in two different tellings.
Even though it was the same story.
This topic was suggested by Justine Manzano, whose works I would definitely recommend checking out. Incidentally, she and I are both involved in WriteHive, a writing organization; she’s on the board, while I’m a lowly volunteer that sometimes hosts our weekly write-ins and works on our year-round conference taking place June 9th-11th this year! In fact, here’s her and I along with Taylor Vogt and Nicole Bea talking on a panel about finding catharsis through art moderated by Brenda Radchick at WriteHive 2021.
I definitely have found some small degree of catharsis through writing this Substack.
Relying On AI Translation For Immigration Purposes Is Unacceptable
The essence of the problem, ‘funnily’ enough with how relevant they are in the culture wars we so often talk about, relied on the employment pronouns: The automated translation software used in her written statement changed the equivalent of our “I” to our “We,” implying that the applicant had been with a group rather than on her own.
Since her story was “inconsistent” as a result of the AI’s mistranslation, she was denied asylum.
Now, let’s be real: There are a lot of people who need translation services, and there are not enough translators available to meet this need. How could there be? John Oliver recently did a take on the Biden administration’s work on the immigration front, and one thing is clear: Immigration is, and has been, an issue where peoples’ lives depend on things being done both quickly and efficiently.
AI translation isn’t terrible if you want to get the gist of a story in a pinch. There’s a National Institutes of Health review by Linghui Kong that goes into excellent depth about the way AI performs translation. It makes me think of my educational psychology classes in a strange fashion, both in terms of how far Human ingenuity has gone, and how much further it yet has to go.
A machine translated narrative can serve as an excellent first step towards helping someone migrate to the U.S. and escape danger. However, it can not be relied upon as the primary, or even secondary source for understanding and detecting falsehoods within someone’s proclaimed background.
Never mind that such a tiny detail should, with limited exception, never disqualify someone from entering the U.S.. It doesn’t necessarily matter whether a person migrated on their own or with others, does it? Unless those others are particularly dangerous, it really doesn’t.
It also stands to reason that we should strengthen the appeals process in the face of such obvious, easily-detected errors. A tiny mistake on paperwork should not be the basis of a denial, but if it somehow must be, then it should stand to reason that when there is an error there should be a substantial opportunity to correct it.
I suppose this systemic breakdown is only to be expected given that we haven’t done anything to improve our immigration laws in almost 40 years - or, basically, almost my entire lifetime.
Maybe it’s time we do that.
In Other News
I know, I know, this week’s article is short. Lots of Real-Life came up this week, so research time was limited.
Republican Presidential candidate & former U.S. President Donald Trump continues to be plagued by incredibly asinine scandals. Among them, two notable events are, first, that there’s a cooperating witness in his mishandling of documents. Second, in his defamation case regarding allegations that he raped journalist E. Jean Carroll, the (future historians, I am not making this up) former President defended himself by saying she was “not his type” in the same deposition that he mistakenly identified Carroll to be his ex-wife Marla Maples. Again, I swear I am not making this madness up.
Sticking with Trump, his former senior counselor Kellyanne Conway is caught up in the ongoing revelations of ethical shenanigans having to do with the Supreme Court in general, and - in this case - Justice Clarence Thomas. Always neat to find out our court system is overridden with what sure as hell looks like bribery.
Indiana has signed its own version of a “Don’t Say Gay” law. Just great.
Problems with Debt Ceiling negotiations continue. It’s all a stupid thing, isn’t it?
A man named Jordan Neely was killed (I think that’s okay) on the New York City Subway. There is still a lot of information coming out about this situation, but it might make for a good topic for next week’s article.
Thank you for reading The Progressive Cafe. If this article has helped you, please consider signing up for our mailing list. This article is by Jesse Pohlman, a sci-fi/fantasy author from Long Island, New York, whose website you can check out here.