The phrase machine translation makes contact sound more solved than it is. Translation suggests that meaning is already there, waiting for the right parser.
A higher-order signal may first need classification, containment, structural inference, and policy review before it deserves anything as confident as translation. Even if a model can produce a coherent output, operators still have to ask whether the system understood syntax, intention, or merely found a plausible compression of unfamiliar structure.
This is why translation engines alone are not enough. They can be powerful mediators, but they cannot also be the sole authority on what the signal means and what response it warrants. The model that parses should not automatically become the institution that replies.
The safer assumption is that machine mediation will be necessary but permanently incomplete. Contact procedure begins to fail the moment fluent output is mistaken for verified understanding.