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Notes -
I would say the advantage of ChatGPT over a traditional translator is that you can interrogate it. For example, say you get an email from your boss you do not understand. You can ask it not only for a translation but also about subtext or tone, even to rephrase the translation in a way that preserves meaning. It seems to me that if you take advantage of this even 20% of the time, you come out ahead, because despite obvious model weaknesses and potential errors, direct translation has its own misunderstandings too (which seem worse).
Ditto for the composition side of things. You can do stuff like compose a foreign language email and then have it back-translate it to you as a way of double checking you said what you intended to say. Sure, AI might worsen the writing,
Alas, most humans lack this kind of imagination, but optimistically we can teach people how to get more out of their LLM usage.
All that said the original post as I understood it was more about using LLMs as a language learning tool, and I think there, they have a potential point. The biggest counterpoint also comes from interactivity: ever tried using the advanced voice mode? It's pretty neat, and allows verbal practice in a safe, no-judgement, infinite-time environment, which is quite literally the biggest obstacle to language learning 95% of people face! So if the AI sometimes misleads in correcting a passage, I think it's a worthwhile tradeoff for the extra practice time, considering how frequently language learners basically stop learning, or give up learning, at a certain point.
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