AI threatens to decimate the translation profession, according to a new survey by a British union.
They fear far worse is to come.
Over three-quarters of translators (77%) believe GenAI will negatively impact future income from their creative work.
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To protect them, the union wants GenAI developers to commit to consent, remuneration, and transparency measures.
SoA has also called for government enforcement of the measures.
GenAI developers, however, may have a different view.
The AI translation boom
The job fears come amid immense improvements in machine translation (MT).
Google Translate provides a notable example.
On launch, the service used a statistical model that provided mixed results.
After upgrading to anartificial neural internet in 2016, the translation quality rapidly improved.
Recent examples include a world-firsttranslator for eventsfrom Switzerlands Interprefy andnovel researchon the singularity from Italys Translated.
Both companies have downplayed the threat they pose to human translators.
This generates business, and business generates higher-quality content that requires professionals.
Trombetti also anticipates new jobs emerging for skilled linguists: training and fixing MT systems.
True as that may be, its unlikely to allay the fears of human translators.
Story byThomas Macaulay
Thomas is the managing editor of TNW.
He leads our coverage of European tech and oversees our talented team of writers.
Away from work, he e(show all)Thomas is the managing editor of TNW.
He leads our coverage of European tech and oversees our talented team of writers.
Away from work, he enjoys playing chess (badly) and the guitar (even worse).
