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“AI is taking on live translations. But jobs and meaning are getting lost / New artificial intelligence-driven capabilities are expected to accelerate the shift from translation done by humans to machines”:
 | New artificial intelligence-driven capabilities are expected to accelerate the shift from translation done by humans to machines. www.washingtonpost.com |
By Danielle Abril
In the five years Nathan Chacón has worked as a professional translator, he’s noticed a steady decline in demand for the freelance services he offers. Beginning in 2023, he said, more people seem to be turning to artificial intelligence to get documents translated from English to Spanish or vice versa. And others in his industry are noticing the change, too.
Chacón said he’s one of the luckier professionals because he works as a full-time translator and interpreter for a pediatric hospital in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. But if he were a full-time freelancer, the 28-year-old said, his livelihood would’ve taken a hit.
“There’s a lot of translators out there, and they were echoing my concerns,” about AI’s effect, he said. “I’m seeing AI tools take over.”
As more tech products are equipped with live translation capabilities using AI, it has begun to erode a profession that was already beset by dwindling job opportunities, people within the industry say. And researchers predict that the shift away from human translation is only expected to speed up in the future.
“We’re likely to see the displacement of translators accelerate,” said Carl Benedikt Frey, associate professor of AI and work at the Oxford Internet Institute. “AI today is the worst it will ever be. It’s only going to improve.”
The transition from human translation to machines has been happening for decades, professional translators and researchers said. Human translators already were being asked to proofread and edit translations done by older technologies: Now they’re also being asked to do that for translations generated by AI, some of which lack cultural context or contain errors, they said.
Last year, about 75,300 people worked as translators or interpreters, representing a decrease of nearly 3 percent over the last five years, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Meanwhile, a recent study released by Microsoft researchers identified translators and interpreters as the top occupations where AI can be applied.
Despite AI’s impact on the industry, humans will probably continue to be needed for regulated industries where linguistic precision is important, Frey predicts.
Some professionals in the field say they’re already feeling the crunch. Earlier this year, language-learning app Duolingo opted to replace some of its contract translators with AI in a new strategy, causing backlash from customers.
Meanwhile, Google’s Pixel 10 comes equipped with the ability to live-translate between English and 10 other languages while mimicking the user’s voice on phone calls. And earlier this month, Apple released a new AI feature that users can use on their AirPods to translate in-person conversations. Meta also built live-translation capabilities into popular Meta Ray-Ban glasses, and Google is following suit with translation tools for smart glasses running on its Android XR software. For workplaces, Google and Microsoft announced live-translation features that also mimic users’ voices in their videoconference products.
But the technology may not always get translation right, said Andy Benzo, president-elect of the American Translators Association. Relying on AI for translations for sensitive legal, medical or financial documents carries “significant risks,” he said. The AI could mislabel legal terms, incorrectly translate dosage instructions or patient conditions, and cause an error in an audit report, he said, as well as inadvertently introduce bias or misunderstandings.
“We see AI as a tool, but not a replacement for humans,” Benzo said. “Translators and interpreters do not exchange words; they exchange meanings.”
Chacón said he often has to correct the errors AI makes, as it can take phrases like “it’s raining cats and dogs” too literally. At his hospital job, he finds that when patients are given the choice between connecting with someone virtually to interpret a doctor’s visit, they often prefer a human in the room, saying they “feel more connected.”
Veteran workers say they’ve watched the shift to technology-driven translations over time. Robert Bononno, a professional translator for French and English in New York City with 35 years of experience, said some companies have opted to rely more on machine-aided translators, which allow them to translate with the click of a button. It’s leading to a decline in demand for his services, he said.
“Fortunately I’m close to retirement age,” Bononno said. But “if I were 30 years old, I’d be looking at going back to school or changing professions. I don’t see a viable future where I could make enough to make a living.”
In the gaming industry, which often features translated features, language experts are already seeing pay and opportunities decrease as more companies adopt AI, said Hannah Lund, a former translator for a gaming company in Shanghai who now lives in Chicago. Companies often tout efficiency when implementing the tech. But “when they say they’re cutting costs, we’re usually the cost.”
Sometimes the errors AI introduces are incomprehensible, she said, causing human translators to spend double the amount of time it would’ve taken had they done it from scratch. Lund remembers one “odd” case where the technology translated a game from Mandarin Chinese into British English, and halfway through it turned Shakespearean. Lund left gaming to work on translating literary works, which she said is more likely to favor linguistic nuances only humans can offer.
Erik Voss, an assistant professor of applied linguistics at Columbia University’s Teachers College, said new AI translation tools could inspire more people’s interest in learning new languages and serve as an aid for teachers and students of foreign languages.
Still, professionals like Lund worry about people’s overreliance on AI for translations.
“The more we remove human elements from human interaction, the more it could distort relationships between people,” she said. “Now more than ever, we need humans connecting with humans.”
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