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Recently during the lectures we've been listening to "China's Betting Big on Artificial Intelligence. Could the US lose the AI Race?" from YouTube. Certain video sections were in Chinese, with English subtitles. Cca. at 28:48 I got stuck. I'd consulted both the lector and ChatGPT 3.5 (the weaker one, yup) for help, and ended up with 2 different versions. This is #1:

所以,我从整个发展趋势上来讲,虚拟技术也好,人工智能,对整个这个是视觉创作来讲,不仅仅是电影。对整个视觉创作来讲,一定是发展方向,并且是不可逆的。

And this is #2:

所以,我从整个发展趋势上来讲,虚拟技术也好,人工智能,对整个这个视觉创作来讲,不仅仅是电影。对整个视觉创作来讲,一定是发展方向,并且是不可逆的。

The subtitles provided with the video say this:

"From the overall perspective of development trends, both virtual technology and artificial intelligence are essential for the film and creative content industry. It's an inevitable direction of development, and it's irreversible."

Now, the difference is only in additional 是 in the first sentence, because the guy in the video says phonetically something like "是视觉". However, there is a slight pause in between, and my lecturer is persuaded that he's just hesitating and actually only repeats the syllable, saying "视- 视觉", which makes perfect sense. However, he also claims that #1 is grammatically impossible. Which is where I'm not so persuaded because I don't understand why the entire sentence "整个这个是视觉创作" couldn't be injected inside the "对…来讲" construct.

On the other hand, ChatGPT couldn't, of course, hear the video and has only my 3 text samples above. Nonetheless it says it believes that both #1 and #2 are grammatically correct. Furthermore, it says that #1 is possibly closer to the intended meaning of the subtitles. My issue is that as a layman, I'm more persuaded by the arguments of AI than by those of the professional educated teacher. Maybe AI is completely wrong? Or maybe both are partially right?

Hence I think my problem can be divided into 3 separate questions:

  1. Are both #1 and #2 grammatically correct, or only one?
  2. Is #1 or #2 closer to the intended meaning of the subtitles?
  3. What does the guy actually say in the video at that moment?

P.S.: There also may be additional errors in both of my transcriptions, e.g. parts with 我 or 不仅仅. I'd be thankful for any corrections:)

2 Answers 2

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Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, ChatGPT is entirely wrong in this case and only #2 is grammatically correct.

“整个这个是视觉创作” is a completely valid sentence by itself and would translate into "The entirety of this is visual creative content". However, it cannot be "injected" into “对 X 来讲” as we want an object in place of "X". “对 X 来讲” = "In terms of X". By including “是”, “对 X 来讲” is no longer a valid preposition.

Your lecturer is correct in that it is most likely a hesitation/repeated word.

“视- 视觉” is what was said at the moment, and I can confirm with near certainty as if you listen to the next part where he says “对整个视觉创作来讲”, here there is clear emphasis put on the words “视觉” as compensation for the stutter earlier.

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  • Thanks, that persuaded me. To err is human, and now also ChatGPT, unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately :) My mistake was that I didn't understand impossibility of the whole sentence to be regarded as an object in another sentence.
    – Yustus
    Commented Mar 13 at 18:32
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  • 所以,我从整个发展趋势上来讲,虚拟技术也好,人工智能,对整个(这个)视觉创作来讲,不仅仅是电影。对整个视觉创作来讲,一定是发展方向,并且是不可逆的。

The second version is better than the first (which is grammatically incorrect), but can be modified by eliminating "这个", which is unnecessary.

Below is my version to answer your question - "What does the guy actually say in the video at that moment?":

  • From the overall perspective of development trends [从整个发展趋势上来讲], both virtual technology and artificial intelligence are essential[虚拟技术""人工智能"都是(both A and B are = A 和 B 都是)"必不可少的 for the film and creative content industry[对于电影及创意内容产业来说]. It's an inevitable direction of development[这是发展的必然方向], and it's irreversible[也是不可逆转的].

Rearrange the pieces, the complete translation becomes:

  • 从发展趋势整体来看,虚拟技术人工智能对于电影创意内容产业来说都是必不可少的。这是发展的必然方向,也是不可逆转的。
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  • Thanks too, the third confirmation that it's grammatically impossible, increases the level of certainty for me. Your translation is very good, I've just learnt few new words from it. As you've also already noticed, the two texts in simplified Chinese were my phonetic transcriptions (in case that's the right word) of what the presumed chief of the Wandering Earth team was saying in the video. I was conscious of the fact that his speech is far from the subtitles by content. And that's what made the listening session harder — I could rely only on few key words -_-
    – Yustus
    Commented Mar 13 at 18:47

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