The road to hell is paved by good intentions.
We say in Czech. I understand what you both mean. And you are not talking about the same subject.
It is not a fear of AI. It has nothing to do with it. Maybe you didn’t live through enough of misunderstanding. In the same language, same culture, people you know for years. Maybe you did not study enough languages so yo cannot imagine how subtle one language can be in one word where it takes hours to find something that will almost but not exactly say what you meant. And that all assumes that you are TRYING to communicate.
Now this approach (that everything has to be easy and available to everyone) might result into people not being forced to care about what they say and to whom. Didn’t we have enough of it already?
I talk differently to Germans. Differently to Polish. Differently to Swiss. Differently to Icelandic. Differently to French. Differently to Slovak. And now maybe differently to Finish. I know their languages and cultures enough to be careful. If everyone is trying to talk in English, you at least know we are different and assume some level of misunderstanding. If I speak just Czech from now on, 30 % of what I say gets lost. You will never be able to grasp our humor we have in our language. I have to say it differently to each culture. Yet you will speak to us in our language through the bot. It will sound rough. Unempatethic. There is so much in languages than pure content as you suggest.
Btw I stumbled upon a topic here where people say something about peeing in a shower :)) So funny. I am wondering how this gets auto translated to Chinese or Arabic. Maybe I don’t want to know…
I also know people that learn a new language just to be able to read books in their original languages. Because translations cannot give you the original emotions. There ARE emotions in what you write. And they definitely get lost in translation.
Discourse is about civilized discussion. There is so much done about it in the product. Automatic translation can leverage it or kill it for good if not done carefully.