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4
The Research and Development
Policy Agenda
The discussion above highlighted the special needs of U.S. users of Japanese
to English machine translation for high-quality, general-purpose systems and the
research and technical challenges in developing such systems. What should be
done and who should do it? The sections that follow review a range of
perspectives on these issues discussed at the symposium and lay out alternative
approaches to the formulation of a policy agenda.
THE SKEPTICS
Despite the apparent growing need for translations of Japanese technical
documents, and significant efforts by members of Congress and others to expand
U.S. government efforts in this area, skeptics question whether there is real
demand for such information. A number of commercial ventures to provide
translated Japanese technical literature have failed and many question whether
the U.S. research and business communities will overcome a "not invented here"
syndrome the assumption that technical information from abroad is second rate.
At the same time many suspect that the information being made available is out-
of-date and of little technical interest.
A number of observers question whether the United States government should
attempt to mount a major initiative on machine translation. The case against
doing something, particularly at the U.S. government level, is based on
uncertainty about the need to target this set of technologies for special attention.
30
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Despite a decline in U.S. funding for machine translation, the United States
maintains a solid research base in machine translation. Skeptics, moreover,
question whether Japan has really taken the lead. Instead, they say that the
Japanese have Bushed prematurely to market machine translation systems that
need much more work and would not be attractive to the typical U.S. user.
Therefore, the argument goes, there is no justification for a U.S. government
effort. If the demand is there and the technical problems are amenable to
resolution, they say, U.S. industry should take the lead rather than calling on the
government to support costly and uncertain research.33
Furthermore, support for R&D on machine translation must be seen In broader
context. Some believe other technologies deserve more attention and may have
quicker commercial payoffs. In an era of tight federal budgets, how can the case
be made that machine translation deserves special attention?
Nor is machine translation a panacea for widening U.S. access to Japanese
scientific and technological information. It is one piece of a large picture.
Efforts to expand Japanese language study, harmonize patent systems, and reward
young scientists and engineers who spend time in Japanese laboratories are also
important, sometimes competing themes in the national debate. Professional
translators, moreover, worry that advocates of machine translation believe that it
will be possible to eliminate "the most expensive link in the communication
chain"-the skilled bilingual.34
Even those most committed to work on machine translation note the
sociological problems that plague this enterprise. Viewed from this angle, no
amount of R&D funding will by itself resolve the fragmentation of the research,
development, and user communities in the United States. If machine translation
is going to be supported, the skeptics say, it should be as part of a larger national
commitment to building networks of interaction among researchers, business
people, and professional translators.
THE ADVOCATES
In response to those who question whether the demand is "real" for
translations of Japanese technical literature, advocates of new policy initiatives
note the lack of follow-through in previous initiatives. Some believe that He
33 Skeptics note that most machine translation systems in operation today are based on logic
programming, the expert system approach. Marshall Unger argues that recent breakthroughs in
artificial intelligence (those obtained in the neural-net paradigm, also called connectionism) offer the
most promising direction for future research and development.
34 As discussed above, it would appear that such concerns are no longer valid in view of changing
perspectives on machine translation.
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Office of Japanese Technical Literature, created by law in 1986, has been
downgraded within the Department of Commerce and given inadequate
funding.35 Federal agencies could, using machine translation, do a better job
disseminating existing data on Japanese science and technology to the public,
research, and business communities alike. Machine translation, used as a gisting
tool, does work that is simply beyond the capacity of human translation. If
machine translation were developed into a systemized service, the result could be
to stimulate new demand for Japanese technical information. If users do not
know it exists or that it can be obtained at reasonable or no cost, demand will
remain low.
It is not enough to say: let the marlcet be the judge. Markets can fail to meet
the national interest, providing a legitimate rationale for government action. In
Japan, government and business are cooperating to support a long-term machine
translation development effort. They are, in effect, creating a market. Because
the needs of users in the United States are different from those in Japan and
cannot be fully met by the Japanese to English machine translation systems now
in operation, some believe that our needs cannot be met by simply buying from
Japan.36
There are broader motivations for advancing support for machine translation
in the United States. In Japan and Europe, machine translation is seen as an
important component in the new range of information technologies for the 21st
century. As a technical challenge, Japanese to English machine translation
represents an engineering stretch that may spin off progress in other areas of
information technology, one that requires integration with other fields of
information technology R&D. Viewed from this perspective, machine translation
is a test bed for solving natural language processing problems in information
technology. The question, advocates say, is whether the United States can afford
not to pursue this technology.
The potential impacts of a focused effort on machine translation extend
beyond information technologies. Bnnging together researchers, developers, and
users in a long-term project would provide an opportunity for experimenting with
new approaches to R&D organization. There is a striking fragmentation of
machine translation efforts in the United States ineffective communication
between scientists working on basic research and the engineers who apply it;
weak links between the developers and the potential users. This lack of
coordination makes machine aanslaiion a very fragile technology in the United
35 Comments by Congressman George E. Brown Jr., on the "Federal Role in Accessing Japanese
Technical Information" at the Symposium on Japanese to English Machine Translation.
36 At least one participant in the symposium, however, argues the case for simply buying from Japan.
As long as the technology is readily available to U.S. customers, the argument goes, it makes sense to
take full advantage.
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States today. There are also deeper issues at stake such as whether we should be
satisfied with a situation in which the United States produces the best research
papers and the Japanese produce the products.
WHAT MIGHT BE DONE?
In developing a policy agenda for machine translation in the United States,
there are a number of levels at which initiatives can be taken. Initiatives could be
taken at the international level. Second, a national policy effort could be defined.
And third, individuals and organizations could define new approaches. The
suggestions outlined below are not mutually exclusive, however, policymakers
who see the need for action will also need to determine where scarce resources
can best be invested.
International cooperation in machine translation is desirable in order to
develop expanded and up-to-date bilingual dictionaries. It also makes sense in
view of the large expenditures required and the "precompetitive" nature of some
of the more basic research needed to lay a solid foundation for product
development. Dr. Makoto Nagao, a leader of Japan's machine translation efforts,
has intitiated an International Association for Machine Translation that will bring
together researchers' developers, and users in North America, the European
Community, and Japan. The purpose of the organization would be to collect and
compile information on machine translation so that users have a better
understanding of what types of systems are available, how they can be used, what
the experience of others has been, and improve evaluation of machine translation
systems. For the developers, the benefits would include cooperative approaches
to dictionary building, database construction, and sharing of texts as well as
expected improvements in theories of machine translation and in machine
translation systems. Users and developers alike could benefit from the
development of standards for input, design of controlled languages, and
evaluation. Conceived as a federation of regionally-based organizations, the
international organization will be supported by membership dues (including both
individual and corporate members) and other sources, including government
funding.
In the context of U.S.-Japan relations, cooperation in machine translation has
special significance. Machine translation has been identified by both countries as
an area for potential cooperation under the United States-Japan Agreement for
Cooperation in Science and Technology. Machine translation appears to be well
suited for U.S.-Japan cooperation for a number of reasons. First, the
precompetitive aspects of the R&D challenge are significant. Second, a long-
term effort is needed. Third, the costs are high and the commercial payoffs over
the horizon. Finally, the United States could potentially learn from the efforts
already under way in Japan, provided that the participants include senior
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35
. US US Japanese
Univer- US Industry Industry
sities Machine US
Translation GoVt
Firms
motivation
resources
- financial
- organizational
0 expertise
- core machine ~I
translation technology
- machine translation
production development
user-friendly interfaces
user feedback
develop pitfalls
large-scale databases
o format handling
- integration ~A
o platforms
networks
o database management
systems
graphics
0 scanners
- high-quality MT ? ?
technology
* Note contnbuiions are also made by Japanese universities and government but Japanese industry
has all of these resources.
FIGURE 8 Sources for J-E development SOURCE: Bernard Scott.
Technical Information Service for accessing and translating Japanese language
documents could serve as a foundation for this effort. Machine translation could
be a test bed for a focused, U.S. national initiative in information technology
development. Developing procedures for rapid processing of requests to use
copyrighted materials is also essential, as well as agreements that encourage
timely dissemination and low cost or free usage of jointly developed dictionaries
and other tools.
At another level, policy initiatives can also be developed at the organizational
or corporate level. Those with long experience in providing Japanese language
technical information argue that a commitment is necessary to create and
maintain demand at the organizational level. MCC's International Liaison Office,
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the information specialists at Bell Laboratories-these are the people and places
where demand can be developed internally. Building better ways to organize,
disseminate, and utilize Japanese technical literature provides, therefore, the
context for machine translation. Building a constituency of users for translated
documents means working directly with the users to tailor the search, selection,
and output to their needs. Unfortunately, only the largest organizations today
have invested the resources needed and only a few have made expanding access
to foreign technical literature a high priority.
CONCLUSION
~ range of options is available to policymakers (public and private) who
determine that initiatives in machine translation should be pursued. These
options international collaboration with the European Community and Japan, a
U.S. national project, government support for stronger linkages between
university research centers of excellence and potential developers, a focused
government procurement strategy designed to build machine translation expertise
in the United States are not mutually exclusive. It is, however, not clear that
pursuing an international cooperation strategy would by itself build a fully
integrated research and production base in the United States or a new generation
of machine translation systems that fit the special needs of the U.S. user
community.
Machine translation, broadly defined, offers interesting research and
development challenges in building new information technologies. It also offers
significant potential rewards to businesses operating in global markets, to
researchers and engineers who need to know what is going on in Japan, as well as
to translators whose work can be augmented by the use of machine translation
tools. Machine translation is not a panacea or a fully developed technology-but
it is a dynamic and challenging area worthy of serious policy consideration.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
japanese technical
