Technology, specifically Artificial Intelligence (AI), has taken a great step into our world and generation. People are always in need of translation, especially the fact that everyone has become more interested in learning and understanding other countries’ languages and cultures. Thus, this profession became one of the most important and wanted professions worldwide. “Through the act of translation, we break out of linguistic confinement and reach many other communities”, said Ngugu Wa Thiong’o, a Kenyan author.
However, the continuous development of AI has touched and affected various professions and industries, including the translation industry. As a translator, we can’t ignore the fact that AI has affected us not only negatively but also positively since it helped us grow the feeling of competition and work more on our skills and knowledge. On the other hand, many translators have become more concerned and worried about this fast development, because not only it provides fast translation but it also gives an acceptable translation at a low cost.
Based on a study done by the World Economic Forum, they concluded that by 2025 AI will probably replace around 85 million jobs worldwide, but it will also provide around 97 million new opportunities and jobs at the same time.
Nevertheless, fast and low-cost translations are not always enough and not every acceptable translation is a good one. AI stills lack the human touch, especially in the literary field where emotions and feelings have to be preserved to maintain the exact meaning and be faithful to both the reader and the author.
AI can still help people who need fast service, for example communicating with locals in another country or searching for some specific words in another language for daily use.
Recently on September 17, 2021, Netflix released a Korean series entitled “Squid games”, it was quite a great show and full of suspense and adventure. How does this series help us with our subject? It actually does. On September 30, 2021, comedian Youngmi Mayer tweeted “Not to sound snobby but I’m fluent in Korean and I watched squid game with English subtitles and if you don’t understand Korean you didn’t really watch the same show. Translation was so bad. The dialogue was written so well and zero of it was preserved”. This problem occurred due to two reasons: underpaying translators and using AI.
A life hack or a nightmare? I guess the answers will vary from one person to another, depending on why they’re using AI and if it really helped them or made it even worse.