Interpreters and Translators

It depends on what you translate. If technical documents, sure, it will be automated. But if you translate fiction or poetry, it requires creativity.

Interpreters have abilities to determine cultural and other linguistic niches that AI wont be able to pick up on, making interpreters unlikely to be replaced, however translators will be replaced by AI due to the ability of current AI to easily translate the language and written materials given,

Translators and texters are already scrambling for work at ridiculously low rates today (in 2024). I have seen several quotes made by German translator colleagues that are being "offered" payment of € 0,1 (approx. 1 USD) per word... I especially see the danger of future bland literature, media articles and movie scripts "created" by AI, which will shape future generations into creatures that won't think creatively, artistically and critically. Only that which is imperfect, i.e. slightly off, is art...

Translation is evolving. AI definitely can translate stuff for non language speakers but the professional community is aware of the fact that the AI is nowhere close to human translators at the moment.

Automation can incredibly speed up the process of translation but human element is a must. Also, in terms of transcreation and localisation for different contexts etc. the AI does not have enough understanding of culture and context regardless of the input.

I was a translator, but I was replaced by Google Translate.

I don't think AI would be able to translate or interpret flawlessly. AI is just stored info which is being displayed. It can't understand phrases or casual slangs unless they are encoded in it. A human could do it naturally as they have had an experience of it. AI is just a ' just in case' and still it is not even close to being accurate. A few languages can only be spoken, amd I don't think such languages could be added into a machine. It's hereditary sometimes and you just pick up a language. Language is just a ton of practice. AI might be able to translate but I think I would still prefer a human cause they know what they are saying unlike machines which just try to use what they have been fed with. More the natural and casual more understandable.

Ps : Google translate is still funny, I tried translating 1 sentence into like almost all languages and the sentence was not even close to what I had originally typed. I don't think it's gonna get better

AI is getting better and better at translating texts, however some of them still struggling with understanding the context, but I think this is just a matter of time

A.I. would not be able to interpret American Sign Language yet at this point, so would A.I. be taking Interpreting Sign Language jobs?

No not a chance.

Machine translation has existed for a few years and neural networks and AI will take it to the next level. As an example, Google Translate does poor with context and slang. ChatGPT on the other hand, was never intentionally taught to translate, but I found it does far better on understanding modern slang and making sure the sentences it generate actually make sense. With interpretation, the biggest difficulty for humans is short-term memory. AI does not have this issue.

People want people, not machines. People feel culturally and socially comfortable with those who share their language, and that'll never happen with a robot.

I didn't think so in 2019 or even 2021. But now, May 2023, with Chat GPT4 and the moratorium on AI R&D I'm not so sure. There will still be post-editing, I think, but I do believe the profession is under threat.

I give it 5-10 years before machine translation is the new normal, it's already happening and will simply be cheaper and faster (not to mention that some clients don't seem to care that much about nuanced, very polished texts). The current translators will be reduced to proofreaders/post-MT editors, for the most part.

As an ASL interpreter, there really is no way AI would be able to automate what we do. If you know, you know.

Even though the output text has to be checked by a human in the end, the bulk of the work can be done by AI, thus the demand for translators will be greatly reduced.

Because even if a robot can translate one language to the other, there still needs to be a human moderator to make sure everything is correct, or culturally sensitive.

Ai won’t be able to translate context in some languages and it will over complicate words a native would never say

I have been a medical interpreter for some time now and I really don't see our job being replaced soon. Just in one language there are dozens of different dialects and registers which can include a lot of different words to refer to the same thing. You have to read the context around the conversation to make sense of all of the senseless things the low English proficient client says sometimes.

Also interpreters and translators are two very different jobs with different automation risks, I don't think they should be together in one category.

Note that translation (converting a written text from one language to another) and interpretation (converting a live speech from one language to another) are different activities.

Both are likely to be automated in the near future, since there are no constraints in this realm that cannot be overcome by AI, sooner or later.

Nevertheless, automation will probably come much sooner to translation (as a matter of fact, to a great extent it already has) than to interpretation.

translators already exist, and with the rapid advance of AI that we're seeing even today, i think that translators will be almost completely phased out except for a couple sensitive applications here and there

Translators will be replaced by machines only if we accept to adopt a very narrow view of language as a code used to clearly communicate a message. Language is nothing like that. Unfortunately, dumb capitalist companies and boffins are convinced that language is similar to coding