A new study co-authored by an MIT economist shows that improved translation software can significantly boost international trade online -- a notable case of machine learning having a clear impact on economic activity. The research finds that after eBay improved its automatic translation program in 2014, commerce shot up by 10.9 percent among pairs of countries where people could use the new system. To have it be so clear in such a short amount of time really says a lot about the power of this technology," says Erik Brynjolfsson, an MIT economist and co-author of a new paper detailing the results. To put the results in perspective, he adds, consider that physical distance is, by itself, also a significant barrier to global commerce. The 10.9 percent change generated by eBay's new translation software increases trade by the same amount as "making the world 26 percent smaller, in terms of its impact on the goods that we studied," he says. The paper, "Does Machine Translation Affect International Trade?

This package contains the mlpack Library development files. . Machine Learning Pack (mlpack) is an intuitive, fast, scalable C machine learning library, meant to be a machine learning analog to LAPACK. It aims to implement a wide array of machine learning methods and function as a "swiss army knife" for machine learning researchers. This package contains the mlpack Library runtime files. . Machine Learning Pack (mlpack) is an intuitive, fast, scalable C machine learning library, meant to be a machine learning analog to LAPACK.