Robots rule… Will AI replace human translators?

… Will AI replace human translators? There has been much written about #AI and whether #humantranslators will ultimately be replaced?  

It was commonly recognised in the industry as far back as 2020, that for the first-time Post Edit Machine Translation had surpassed human translation in volume on the year.  

While the use of AI continues to grow across all industries and aspects of life, we still believe that the full human element can never be truly replaced, but it’s about embracing technology to offer complimentary support and efficiency gains.   

The question for the individual in need of translation is “what is the trade-off we are prepared to accept?”  

Consideration needs to be given to type of text, target audience, subject matter and language when the decision is being made.  

There are in excess of 70,000 #languages recognised in the world today, each with its own idiosyncrasies. Using those languages are people and cultures where language takes on its own context and where a word has multiple interpretations (i.e. lead – a metal substance or to guide, direct), careful, sector experienced, post editing is still required to get the context and intent correctly reflected from the original source text.  

Critical areas like pharmaceutical / medical / health / legal are still open to risk, in some cases it can be life impacting!  And some texts are simply not suited due to being emotive or of a creative nature.  

Add into the mix that some machine translation engines are better than others in terms of their ability to be intelligent, or the content is better suited than others and the variants of unknown and thereby risks increase.  

Across the translation industry and here at Accentua, human translation, MT / Human in the loop and Post Edit options are supported.  

So, for many it’s about taking informed decisions about which tools to use, how post editing is supported, quality of the post editors, quality of source material, and the impacts of the outcomes.  

Through our research and evaluations, we are confident that Accentua’s MT / Human in the loop option offers the best of compromise’s – for when its right to do so.   

In all other business critical situations, we uphold the use of our #linguists and the skills they deploy for the human translation support, written and verbal.  

So, if you are still trying to navigate your way through the mass of information, or have taken a route and it isn’t delivering what you need, do pop us a note, call or email and we’ll be happy to advise rick.macdonald@accentuagroup.com