Should you fear the rise of machines in the translation?

Fear of machine translation

There is a lot of worry and unease in translating services business because there is so much new technology that can be used to make machine translation work. As in other industries, the main fear is that AI could make humans irrelevant. If machines could do the job just as well as humans, who would need them?

Many individuals are concerned that machines will replace humans as a result of the current possibilities offered by machine translation. In truth, technology will never be able to replace the place of people in the translation process.

However, this very problem isn’t true. They can’t do the same job that humans can. So, of course, it’s impressive how much AI can already do and how much it will be able to do in the future, too. But when it comes to language, humans can’t just be left out of the equation. This isn’t the only thing that goes into doing a good translation. People have to do the fine-tuning. A machine can’t do this work for you.

In other words, the translation industry shouldn’t forget about how neural networks could help them improve their work. On the other hand, machine translation should be viewed as a technology that can be integrated into modern work processes. After all, there’s a lot more to it than “churning” a text through a computer and then taking the outcome as is.

Rage Against the Machine (Translation)

As soon as Machine Translation came into our lives, a lot of people were against it. Linguists and translators are both against it now, too. Initially, the debate was based on the idea that machines don’t know how to translate. But now, it’s all about this scary idea that machines will eventually take over all of the work of human translators.

Machine Translation will continue to play a significant part in the language service sector. Further, it would be naive to believe that technology would ever totally replace human translators or leave their services obsolete. Professional linguists are in higher demand than ever before. As a result, the volume of content that requires translation is rapidly increasing. MT solutions have been developed to assist translators in performing their tasks more efficiently and without affecting their career prospects. This is what many critics don’t know or choose not to say.

Beyond employment

Employment is important, but it is only a small part of what it means to be prosperous. AI, like the Internet, will boost global GDP in the same way. PWC says that by 2030, global GDP could rise by 14%, which is about $15.7 trillion, because of AI. People in China and India make more than that.

Therefore, the bottom truth is that you cannot truly complete a translation assignment successfully without the assistance of a professional linguist. Further, we should not worry about computers “stealing our jobs.” Rather, we should work on ways to strengthen the symbiotic connection between human translators and the big bad machine.