Microsoft is committed to making Star Trek’s Universal Translator a reality

The Star Trek The franchise has inspired dozens of technological advancements over the past five decades. To some extent, this is why cell phones, tablets, voice-activated computers, video conferencing, and more exist Star Trek. Now tech giant Microsoft is tackling another piece of Trek technology – the Universal Translator.

The Universal Translator is one of the most important technical devices in the world Star Trek Universe. This technology, integrated into Starfleet’s communicators, enables real-time translation of alien languages. Since verbal communication is the primary way living things interact with one another, the premise of Star Trek – Without the Universal Translator, it would be virtually impossible to contact and establish cultural relationships with new alien species.

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In today’s world, where people around the world are connected through social and business relationships, real-time translation technology is more important than ever. Although developing this type of technology has presented significant challenges, Microsoft has just announced that AI-powered, real-time translation services will be available in Microsoft Teams in early 2025.

Microsoft’s interpreter

According to Microsoft’s November 19 press release, upgrades to the existing Copilot Studio coming in 2025 will include incredible improvements to current translation features in the Microsoft product suite. Microsoft claims that Interpreter can translate anything in a virtual meeting in Microsoft Teams in real time. No more waiting for an interpreter to act as an intermediary. No more meeting breaks waiting for the translation software to catch up. When someone speaks in a meeting, the person on the other end hears the speech in their native language.

The program draws on a huge AI database to interpret the speaker’s words and translate them into the listener’s native language. Microsoft even says that Interpreter will have a setting to change the sound of the speaker’s voice so that it sounds more like the listener’s native language, making it easier to understand.

Interpreter’s demo is at the 45 second mark in the video above.

The challenges of real-time translation

Long before AI was advanced enough to provide real-time translation services, Star Trek: Enterprise predicted some of the challenges technology companies would face in developing a universal translator.

As explained in a study on the accuracy of AI translation programs published in iScienceTranslation programs can only work if they have accurate information about both the foreign and native languages. People have to train the translation programs, fix their errors, and update the programming with new information.

In Pursueearly versions of the Universal Translator relied heavily on a human translator. When the Universal Translator failed to decipher a foreign language, Ensign Hoshi Sato, a gifted linguist, was responsible for filling in the gaps and reprogramming the Universal Translator. However, Sato worked with completely foreign languages ​​and often had difficulty learning the grammar, syntax, and nuances of these languages, interpreting them, and reprogramming the universal translator.

Although they don’t work with foreign languages, people working on real-world translation programs have encountered similar problems, especially when trying to create real-time translation programs. Each language has its own peculiarities, idioms and colloquialisms, as well as multiple accents and dialects. In order to translate all of this correctly and convey the ideas in the right context, translation programs had to understand, recognize and interpret all of these details in real time. To achieve this, translation programs must analyze and learn from an immense amount of data.

Until recently, AI was not advanced enough to aggregate and organize all of this data in a way that was accessible to translation programs. But the amazing advances in AI technology made in recent years have allowed companies like Microsoft to rely on AI translation as the basis for programs like Interpreter.

If Microsoft’s Copilot and Interpreter actually work as the company claims, it will truly revolutionize the way people communicate virtually Star Trek The dream of a universal translator becomes reality.

Star Trek: Enterprise

Release date

September 26, 2001

Seasons

4

Creator

Rick Berman, Brannon Braga

Number of episodes

98

network

UPN

Sources: Microsoft, iScienceStar Trek: Enterprise