> This has some truly weird implications, e.g. once language model translations switch from subtitles to dubbing it will effectively stop shifts in pronunciation, because the models won't be re-trained with an ear to the street.
This has already happened to a great degree thanks first to radio and the television, as well as the early 20th century movement to “received pronounciation” in many countries. E.g. TV finally killed off thee and thou in the 1960s
It often feels like there are regional accent variations but they are usually quite minimal these days thanks to spread of technology.
The in Europe, explicit suppression or uniformation of language began AFAIK with Louis XIII and his deliberate formation of “France” (as opposed to just a collection of regions controlled by one person). In China I believe the same thing was instigated by the (by coincidence contemporary!) Qing dynasty, but it might have been a lot earlier. In any case it really zoomed throughout the world in the 20th century when communication technologies and practices were adopted by the emerging nationalist movements.
So machine translation will simply continue a longstanding process.
Quoting this para because it's so good as a statement of requirements:
“What we need today is a readable, audible, singable, speakable, dictatable language which we can read aloud without the need to translate into the spoken language, with the help of which we can take notes without the need to translate into the literary language, which we can [use] at the speaker’s desk as well as on the stage, and which even village grannies, women and children can understand if we read it to them. Any language that does not meet these requirements is not a living language, and can under no circumstances become the national language of our country.”
This seems like a "see three, pick two" problem. Compulsory education in the standard language will eventually solve most of these concerns. Ready understandability by elders seems quite hard to achieve, and might only possible if the new standard is quite similar to an already widespread register. And that's not even addressing the issue that daily life of some ethnic subgroups might happen in a completely different language, who might also be actively resistant of assimilating into the national culture.
Rapid communication over long distances is flattening regional differences, but that doesn't stop language change. It probably speeds it up instead, because any new trend can reach the entire population much more quickly.
Rapid communication over long distances in time might be able to put a stop to that, e.g. if teens end up interacting more with simulacra of long-dead actors than others of their own age, there could be some weird effects. But I think that's unlikely to happen, since someone is bound to come up with a more popular version that has all the newest slang.
It is also said that the TV was more harmful to Italian dialects and had more long-lasting effects than the efforts of the Fascist Party. Also in German-speaking countries, which normally have a much more friendly attitude towards their dialects, the effects of TV usage on linguistical diversity can be easily seen.
When I am back in Australia (from the US) friends/family tell me "you haven't lost your accent" which I interpret as them telling me "I watch a lot of American television".
Losing that accent was deliberate, if sad, but IME Americans aren't really tolerant of non-US accents, even when they find them cute. And the speech recognition systems are definitely intolerant.
Look into the English dialects of Yorkshire. I don’t think this is a particularly obscure fact, though of course by the 60s it was a linguistic remnant of the elderly.
This has already happened to a great degree thanks first to radio and the television, as well as the early 20th century movement to “received pronounciation” in many countries. E.g. TV finally killed off thee and thou in the 1960s
It often feels like there are regional accent variations but they are usually quite minimal these days thanks to spread of technology.
The in Europe, explicit suppression or uniformation of language began AFAIK with Louis XIII and his deliberate formation of “France” (as opposed to just a collection of regions controlled by one person). In China I believe the same thing was instigated by the (by coincidence contemporary!) Qing dynasty, but it might have been a lot earlier. In any case it really zoomed throughout the world in the 20th century when communication technologies and practices were adopted by the emerging nationalist movements.
So machine translation will simply continue a longstanding process.