(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Star Trek open thread: The implausibility of the Universal Translator [1] ['Alonso Del Arte', 'Franks Human', 'Mercy Ormont', 'Greg Dworkin', 'Angmar Barrow'] Date: 2026-09-02 Someone actually asked on Reddit: “With AI becoming so prevalent, how close are we to a universal translator?” That was on the r/ No Stupid Questions subreddit. The idea that present day “generative A.I.” could actually lead to the Universal Translator depicted in Star Trek is an idea that places a lot of faith on a technology to perform tasks far more complex than the simpler tasks that elude its capabilities. The Universal Translator was invented by Star Trek writers to explain how the crew of the Enterprise can talk to people from other planets in English. Somehow, the Universal Translator takes what someone is saying in a language you don’t know and translates it into a language you do know, and the translation is so seamless you’re not even aware it’s happening. For example, Captain Kirk (William Shatner) says something in English to Koloth (William Campbell), who hears it in Klingon and responds in Klingon. Then Kirk hears Koloth’s response in English. This way, the episode doesn’t get bogged down in people waiting for a translation before they can respond. It would certainly be wonderful if there was a device in real life that could do that for all the languages of Earth. But just the languages of Earth present plenty of problems that prevent such a device from functioning the way it’s depicted on Star Trek. In the Star Trek: Voyager episode “The 37s,” the Voyager crew thaw out humans who have been cryogenically frozen since 1937. Captain Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) talks to a farmer, Jack Hayes (Mel Winkler), and a Japanese soldier, Nogami (James Saito). NOGAMI: You are all speaking Japanese. HAYES: Sounds to me like you are speaking English. JANEWAY: It’s because of a device we have. A universal translator. It allows us to talk to each other even though our languages aren’t the same. Let’s take Nogami’s line “You are all speaking Japanese.” Suspension of disbelief requires us to think that Nogami actually said something along the lines of “皆さんは日本語を話している。” (minasan wa nihongo o hanash’te iru) but Hayes and Janeway instead hear “you are all speaking Japanese.” If we try to maintain the original word order, we get something like “Everyone Japanese speaking to [me] are.” The classic Star Trek episode “Metamorphosis” explains that the Universal Translator also scans brain waves. Setting aside the privacy concerns, there’s the issue of what happens when a speaker breaks off mid-sentence. Does the Universal Translator then render in the target language words that might actually complete the interrupted utterance in the source language? The Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode “Little Green Men” suggests that the Universal Translator is some kind of implant. But apparently it’s not required for all speakers to have the implants. Quark (Armin Shimerman), a Ferengi from the future, talks to humans in 1947 as easily as he talks to other Deep Space Nine residents. Some episodes do show the Universal Translator has its limitations even when it functions normally for familiar languages. The most famous example is of course the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Darmok.” This is an episode that reran recently on the H & I channel. The Enterprise runs across the Tamarians, who say incomprehensible things such as Darmok at Tanagra. Tenba, his arms wide. Shaka, when the walls fell. After wrestling with it for a while, Lt. Commander Troi realizes that the Tamarians speak in allusions to their mythology. Lacking familiarity with Tamarian mythology, it’s difficult for people like Troi or Captain Picard to understand what the Tamarians are saying. Commander Crusher gives the example of “Juliet on her balcony,” which would make no sense to the Tamarians. Some mythological figures have seeped so much into our languages that some of us are unaware. It was quite a revelation for me to read the Merriam Webster article https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/words-from-the-odyssey the a bit of dialogue from the Star Trek: Enterprise episode “Civilization,” a high point of that show’s otherwise dull first season. Captain Archer (Scott Bakula) and Riann (Diana DiLascio) are dodging weapons fire from the bad guys. Riann is an Ahkali woman who probably knows nothing about people from other planets. She notices something that might just help them turn things around. RIANN: The oil lamp. ARCHER: What about it? RIANN: There should be at least a liter of residic oil in the container below it. Residic oil ignites at 398 degrees. You wouldn’t happen to have anything that gets that hot? Archer fires his phaser at the oil lamp, it ignites and knocks out the bad guys. An exciting moment. But I can’t help but wonder: 398 degrees of what scale? Presumably it’s roughly four times as hot as the boiling point of water. Which assumes they’re using a scale that puts the boiling point of water at 100 degrees. Oh, and what about liters? Would that be metric? Is the Universal Translator doing measurement conversions here? the open thread question: what’s your answer to the question from Reddit? 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