You seem to be missing that the translation part isn't the expensive part, it's the validation and review.
Separately, maybe this is just me, but having data actually flow through my hands is necessary for full comprehension. Just skimming an automated result, my brain doesn't actually process like half of that data. Making the process more efficient in this way can make my actual review performance *much worse.* The "inefficient" process forcing me to slow down and think can be a feature.
Not for all jobs though? There are many (imo) soul destroying 'translation' jobs at many private (and I suspect especially, public) sector companies. Think of things like typing up (scanned) paper submissions to your local government.
This will often be a giant excel spreadsheet or if you are lucky something like Microsoft Access.
They are absolutely riddled with mistakes as is with humans in the loop.
I think this is one of the core issues with HNers evaluating LLMs. I'm not entirely some of them have ever seen how ramshackle 90%+ of operations are.
The translation might not be expensive, but its soulcrushingly robotic.
My interest in LLMs isnt to increase shareholder value, its to make lofe easier for people. I think itd be a huge net benefit to society if people were freed up from robotic work like typing out lines from scanned pdfs to excel sheets, so they can do more fulfilling work
Separately, maybe this is just me, but having data actually flow through my hands is necessary for full comprehension. Just skimming an automated result, my brain doesn't actually process like half of that data. Making the process more efficient in this way can make my actual review performance *much worse.* The "inefficient" process forcing me to slow down and think can be a feature.