The future of translation: Rage against the machine?
We’ve interviewed some of our translation heroes at Beluga to see what they think about the AI-induced job panic and if they were worried about the future of translation.
Science-fiction always loved to imagine a world in which humans manage to communicate across boundaries, with the simple stroke of a button or a voice command given to an artificial super brain strapped to an even bigger computer. In reality, a sense of panic seems to have taken over media outlets, with reputed magazine’s declaring the end of days might be near, with machines conquering and enslaving the human race. But are supercomputers going to take over the world with their red dead LED eyes, anytime soon?
Nope. But let’s take a closer look at what probably is going to change for a field which is considered the holy grail of AI, namely language learning. DeepL or Google Translate are the poster boys for future AI developments, offering translating services, which actually can be considered competitive. So, are translators worried about Machine Translation taking over their business?
OK Computer
At Beluga we have the pleasure of working with translators across the globe and thought, well it would be nice to see what our guys think about Translation 2.0. For a lot of them, the once-booming business now seen some revolutions, which required them to adapt. Luckily, adaptation does not mean loss or compromise, but rather more, a broadening of the skill-set to include machine translation and a knowledge of CAT tools. The amount of content which needs translation ASAP has grown exponentially, with clients demanding results quickly and in high volume. Only a couple of years ago, translation still used to be very manual, with translators inputting in AI-powered services. Now, the nature of the labor has shifted, with the same translators receiving large volumes of text for the same price. It required adaptation and an automated process. Productivity rates increased because translators started to post-edit machine translation in order to meet their deadlines.
In this sense, we’ve asked Matthew McCall, handling German to English translation with Beluga about how his perception of work has shifted and how he adapted in the last couple of years. Within the last five years, he’s noticed how companies started requiring CAT tool knowledge. This soon became a mandatory requirement, with each client working with its preferred weapon of choice:
“(…) this means that I must familiarise myself with separate platforms for different clients (sometimes several different platforms for one client). In general, however, these CAT tools do help to speed up the translation process as translation memories and glossaries are often provided to go along with these platforms.” — Matthew McCall
Moving forward into an era of digitalization also meant a change in content and platforms with the demand for web growing exponentially. The Web has not only become a commodity, but also a necessity for firms to survive in a globalized world. From 2015 the revenues for online sales have doubled from 7,4% to 15,5%, with further growth certainty. This evidently has had a huge impact on the translation business. Stéphanie Taif, one of our English to French linguists recalls this change:
“In the last 5 years, I have received a lot more projects for online content than before, and those projects are to be translated on an online platform, (…).Today it seems with the increase in online content of all forms (pages, newsletters, emails, UIs, social media feeds), the translation projects are all online and we seldom receive actual files.”
One further aspect which impacted the business is the commodification of mobile phones, with over 2,1 billion people owning a smartphone. This usage led to a diversification of mobile-only content like apps, games, software and others. With mobile phones being on a growing demand, the market of translation had to adapt as well. We’ve asked Oscar Villafuerte from our Spanish translation team about his view on the growth of mobile content and here is what he concluded:
“ The ubiquitous use of mobiles has implied a change in the content. It seems that the primary medium for texts, apps, advertising, etc. are now mobile devices and the translation is being readapted: maximum compactness, very simple structures, standardized use of English terminology, language almost iconic used as an interface.”
What does the future hold?
Fear of robots taking over isn’t a new topic, nor will it dissolve in the future. People will always harbor anxiety around the idea of losing their livelihoods in front of an AI overlord. But this mustn’t describe the state of our times or be a harbinger of what may come. Further developments in Tech and Machine Learning do not have to become an existential matter. We think the future will surely raise the bars on productivity and pricing, but also we will see lot more content to be translated. Translators will lastly be working on those parts of the equation that need our human qualities of context understanding, humor and emphathy and “supervise” the directions of AI powered assitance like Alexa, Siri, chatbots and the like.
Right now, what we see is people have gotten used to the hype around computer assisted translation and adaptability of human nature to the new. As we’ve shown above with our case study of the present market, translators across the world integrate CAT tools and ML into their daily routines. So much that it has become incremental to secure their daily quotas.
“I think specialization is extremely important in our field, and it brings you credibility and legitimacy in the eye of the client. Even though machine translation exists and probably handles translation jobs all by itself, I don’t believe it’s the same jobs that we translators happen to work on. I would like to see a successful marketing translation done by a machine, with the play on words and the colloquialisms all correct. Since that is unlikely to happen in near future, I don’t think marketing and creative translators should feel threatened.” — Stéphanie Taif, English to French translator for IT, e-commerce and mobile apps
The jobs of translators will be safe, but they will require more and more specialization and knowledge of working with AI. For some, this might beget new opportunities, while others will have to counterbalance with niche work. Still, what we do have to understand and inevitably accept is that AI will become an undividable aspect of our lives and ultimately is here to stay. This means coming to terms that AI will master many more fields and will require an even broader understanding of working with it and maybe even for it.
About Beluga
Beluga helps fast-moving companies to translate their digital contents. With more than a decade of experience, professional linguists in all major markets and the latest translation technology at use, Beluga is a stable partner of many of the most thriving enterprises in the technology sector. The business goal: To help fast-growing companies offer their international audiences an excellent and engaging user experience.
