>Google Translate, plus some critical thinking and a bit of work with a dictionary, will get you a rudimentary understanding of a text in a foreign language
Which is precisely what he says.
> Hofstadter expresses an expectation that no-one holds for an automatic translation tool,
As demonstrated by the quote at the start, about Russian being just English coded in strange symbols, and also by the unreal hype around "neural networks", plenty of people do on fact hold unrealistic expectations of automatic translation. How many times have you heard someone say translator jobs are going to be automated away in 5 or 10 years? I've heard and read it plenty of times.
Which is precisely what he says.
> Hofstadter expresses an expectation that no-one holds for an automatic translation tool,
As demonstrated by the quote at the start, about Russian being just English coded in strange symbols, and also by the unreal hype around "neural networks", plenty of people do on fact hold unrealistic expectations of automatic translation. How many times have you heard someone say translator jobs are going to be automated away in 5 or 10 years? I've heard and read it plenty of times.