I actively point out areas in which a human-led (Expert in the Lead) approach is essential. The big problem is ultimately that the TechBros and TechSistas from BigTransla on the industry side are heard and have more lobbying power than the translation profession.
I appreciate you making these issues so clear to non-translators.
The market may have spoken, but do you think there will always remain a (smaller) manual translation market for things like important government documents?
That’s a great question! I believe that there will be a very small, as you called it, “manual” translation market.
Maybe for important contracts as you pointed out (although, it’s contracts that are actually most translated by machines) – but I get your point with sensitive information, data and language/meaning. Maybe there will be a combination of AI/machine translation and some human oversight. This won’t pay enough to make a living, though.
Humans will, I believe, mostly have to focus on “artistic” translation, or literary – books, poetry and so on. But AI has already overtaken subtitle translation for TV shows and movies as well, so I might be wrong here too.
Translation (by humans) will be more of a “hobby” than a real, gainful occupation.
I see... As a European, I find it hard to imagine our multilingual institutions (e.g. EU parliament) getting rid of their army of translators. Although this may still happen over time, with human oversight slowly replacing human translation.
Will AI be able to absorb the human experience required to translate Homer, James Joyce or Gertrude Stein? That remains to be seen...
I actively point out areas in which a human-led (Expert in the Lead) approach is essential. The big problem is ultimately that the TechBros and TechSistas from BigTransla on the industry side are heard and have more lobbying power than the translation profession.
I appreciate you making these issues so clear to non-translators.
The market may have spoken, but do you think there will always remain a (smaller) manual translation market for things like important government documents?
That’s a great question! I believe that there will be a very small, as you called it, “manual” translation market.
Maybe for important contracts as you pointed out (although, it’s contracts that are actually most translated by machines) – but I get your point with sensitive information, data and language/meaning. Maybe there will be a combination of AI/machine translation and some human oversight. This won’t pay enough to make a living, though.
Humans will, I believe, mostly have to focus on “artistic” translation, or literary – books, poetry and so on. But AI has already overtaken subtitle translation for TV shows and movies as well, so I might be wrong here too.
Translation (by humans) will be more of a “hobby” than a real, gainful occupation.
I see... As a European, I find it hard to imagine our multilingual institutions (e.g. EU parliament) getting rid of their army of translators. Although this may still happen over time, with human oversight slowly replacing human translation.