How ChatGPT mangled the language of heaven | Letter
Ian Watson (Letters, 17 February) asks for a translation of my letter in Welsh (13 February). I did include an English translation in my letter, but only the Welsh was published. I sent a second letter asking the Guardian to publish the translation, as I was having a lot of stick from a certain friend who couldn’t read it, but with no luck. Hopefully Ian’s letter will change the letters editor’s mind.
The English version was as follows: “Thank you very much for the excellent editorial article which sang the praises of the Welsh language … Since you are now so enthusiastic about Welsh, may I, from now on, write to you in the language of heaven?”
Meanwhile, there has been much glee about my letter on Welsh-language social media. Furthermore, a storyteller friend who doesn’t speak Welsh fed it into Google Translate, and got a pretty accurate English version. He then fed the translation to ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence chatbot, and asked it to construct a story based on the letter.
Alarmingly, but unsurprisingly, the chatbot produced a lot of twaddle in which the Guardian editor and I fell in love, as a result of our shared passion for the “language of heaven”, and lived happily ever after. I don’t think ChatGPT realised that iaith yr nefoedd (language of heaven) is a term used to describe Welsh. Though whether anyone has authenticated if it is spoken there, I sadly can’t tell you.
Fiona Collins
Carrog, Sir Ddinbych