this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2023
407 points (93.6% liked)

Technology

34915 readers
84 users here now

This is the official technology community of Lemmy.ml for all news related to creation and use of technology, and to facilitate civil, meaningful discussion around it.


Ask in DM before posting product reviews or ads. All such posts otherwise are subject to removal.


Rules:

1: All Lemmy rules apply

2: Do not post low effort posts

3: NEVER post naziped*gore stuff

4: Always post article URLs or their archived version URLs as sources, NOT screenshots. Help the blind users.

5: personal rants of Big Tech CEOs like Elon Musk are unwelcome (does not include posts about their companies affecting wide range of people)

6: no advertisement posts unless verified as legitimate and non-exploitative/non-consumerist

7: crypto related posts, unless essential, are disallowed

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Source: https://front-end.social/@fox/110846484782705013

Text in the screenshot from Grammarly says:

We develop data sets to train our algorithms so that we can improve the services we provide to customers like you. We have devoted significant time and resources to developing methods to ensure that these data sets are anonymized and de-identified.

To develop these data sets, we sample snippets of text at random, disassociate them from a user's account, and then use a variety of different methods to strip the text of identifying information (such as identifiers, contact details, addresses, etc.). Only then do we use the snippets to train our algorithms-and the original text is deleted. In other words, we don't store any text in a manner that can be associated with your account or used to identify you or anyone else.

We currently offer a feature that permits customers to opt out of this use for Grammarly Business teams of 500 users or more. Please let me know if you might be interested in a license of this size, and I'II forward your request to the corresponding team.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] eager_eagle 24 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

As a non-native speaker I'm surprised to the amount of grammar mistakes native speakers make. Being a native speaker is not a testament to how much of the language you know. And even that being true, it's not like a real human corrects your text, so the creators being native or not is pretty much irrelevant.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

at the amount of grammar mistakes

[–] eager_eagle 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They’d’ve gotten it wrong too. Prepositions and postpositions are their own category of linguistic hell, especially in idioms and phrasal verbs.

[–] SheeEttin 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

They'dn't've necessarily gotten it wrong. With a big enough dataset, an ML tool should be pretty accurate, at least in that it will make the same choices as most people have made in their writing.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They'd'n'tve

Apostrophe mistakes aside, no native speaker would stack contractions like this. There’s an upper limit of three words in a single contracted form. It would be “They wouldn’t’ve gotten” or “They’d not’ve gotten.”

ML tools don’t write grammatically correct complex sentences precisely because their training sets contain too many discrepancies. They may learn how to apply prescriptive rules consistently one day, perhaps even one day soon, but this is not that day.

[–] SheeEttin 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Who says there's an upper limit? You might not be one of those people, but I'm.

Also, that'll teach me to try to write tricky comments while also doing other things. Fixed.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

LOL! How did I not know about this? Thanks!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Who says there's an upper limit?

Well, linguists say it. But you do you, friend.

Also, that'll teach me to try to write tricky comments while also doing other things.

LOL! Right there with you. If I had a dollar for every time this happens to me…. 😄

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Native speakers don’t usually make major grammar mistakes. They may not follow prescriptive rules, but they’re generally understandable by other native speakers because grammar is so deeply embedded in their subconscious that they can’t help handling the language correctly. You do the same in your native language. Everyone does.

The problem with non-natives, and I include myself as a non-native speaker of a few languages, is that we don’t usually have the same instincts. It would be pretty arrogant to tell a native that they don’t know how to use their own language when we, almost by definition, cannot possibly understand it in the same way that they do.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

well said/written

it's not only that "we don't usually have the same instincts", we have a burden of confusing loans, imports, translations, false friends &c.

When you start dealing with gendered languages, it's even worse. There's no logic to it. A hand is a she in one language, a he in another and neutral in third.

also, this pronoun question of culture wars is ridiculous for someone who can speak non-gendered languages 🤷

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

(Love your handle)

I get what you're saying about gendered languages. But if you speak one long enough, even as a non-native, you'll start to develop a feel for genders and be able to predict them to some degree. So far as I know, the mechanism that determines gender is so deeply subconscious that no one has been able to find and articulate its rules, but it seems to exist.

Re: culture wars - The pronoun question is probably moot point in truly genderless languages. English, unfortunately, is not completely genderless, so it's a bone of contention in the current climate.

[–] eager_eagle 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

all of which is irrelevant to how grammarly works