Poll: Artificial intelligence (AI) has good, practical uses in the translation/interpreting industry. Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
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This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "Artificial intelligence (AI) has good, practical uses in the translation/interpreting industry.".
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Like many other fields, translation has not been spared by artificial intelligence (meaning here machine translation). It has practical uses in some situations (for instance, when travelling to ask for information), but as we all know it misses context and isn’t able to grasp the elements of the language. In the subtitling field, where now it is intensely used, the results are, for a better word, hilarious. Only yesterday I was watching a documentary about interspecies animal friendships which... See more Like many other fields, translation has not been spared by artificial intelligence (meaning here machine translation). It has practical uses in some situations (for instance, when travelling to ask for information), but as we all know it misses context and isn’t able to grasp the elements of the language. In the subtitling field, where now it is intensely used, the results are, for a better word, hilarious. Only yesterday I was watching a documentary about interspecies animal friendships which involved a kid and a donkey and of course “kid” was translated as “child”… ▲ Collapse
| | | | Metin Demirel 
Türkiye
Local time: 13:57
Member (2018)
Italian to Turkish
+ ...
| humans are not that smart either | Jun 26, 2022 |
Teresa Borges wrote:
Like many other fields, translation has not been spared by artificial intelligence (meaning here machine translation). It has practical uses in some situations (for instance, when travelling to ask for information), but as we all know it misses context and isn’t able to grasp the elements of the language. In the subtitling field, where now it is intensely used, the results are, for a better word, hilarious. Only yesterday I was watching a documentary about interspecies animal friendships which involved a kid and a donkey and of course “kid” was translated as “child”…
That could as well be the output of a human translator. I remember a documentary in Turkish referring to the "Georgian era" as "Gürcü dönemi" as in the Georgian of the country Georgia.
| | | | | For Agencies And Companies, Yes; For Me, Not At All | Jun 26, 2022 |
The every-increasing use of machine translation seems to have almost completely destroyed the possibility of finding what, for me, were lucrative translation projects, esp, during the first decade of the 2000s, before I started to devote myself exclusively to literary translations. So I would say that it only has "good, practical uses" for agencies, etc., because, I assume, it is cost effective (which means translators are demoted to the status of post-editors, and as a result, often make a lot ... See more The every-increasing use of machine translation seems to have almost completely destroyed the possibility of finding what, for me, were lucrative translation projects, esp, during the first decade of the 2000s, before I started to devote myself exclusively to literary translations. So I would say that it only has "good, practical uses" for agencies, etc., because, I assume, it is cost effective (which means translators are demoted to the status of post-editors, and as a result, often make a lot less than if they were actually doing the translation) for them. A few years ago, AI also destroyed my human participation/ended up in the elimination of my job when I was working for professors several hours a day, seven days a week, evaluating right-wing and left-wing bias in news articles.
[Edited at 2022-06-26 12:19 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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This topic has already been done to death and beyond, so I hope this poll question doesn't resurrect the same trolling posts we've had before.
For the record (again!), I find MT useful for saving typing time when generating a first draft translation. That's because most of the texts I work on are medical and have a lot of long medical terms and drug names, which the MT generally deals with very well.
Of course, the MT process requires careful supervision and cannot prod... See more This topic has already been done to death and beyond, so I hope this poll question doesn't resurrect the same trolling posts we've had before.
For the record (again!), I find MT useful for saving typing time when generating a first draft translation. That's because most of the texts I work on are medical and have a lot of long medical terms and drug names, which the MT generally deals with very well.
Of course, the MT process requires careful supervision and cannot produce anything close to usable copy on its own*, but I still find it saves time and effort overall. Other translators, with different specialty areas, might not.
(*Not yet, but it's getting better all the time. I noticed yesterday that it was getting some things right that it got wrong only a few weeks ago.) ▲ Collapse
| | | | neilmac
Spain
Local time: 12:57
Spanish to English
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| Caveat emptor | Jun 27, 2022 |
Philip Lees wrote:
... long medical terms and drug names, which the MT generally deals with very well.
I tried out Deepl on a long list of chemical names I had to translate a while ago and it made a lot of mistakes. However, as you say, it may have improved since then, but I'd still be wary about trusting it fully.
| | | | | It's not an either/or question | Jun 27, 2022 |
There's often a false dichotomy in this debate: human vs machine translation.
No one is saying that MT can completely replace human translation, especially with certain texts. Not yet, anyway ; )
But is it a powerful tool? You bet it is.
And it's getting better and better.
Unless you are translating extremely creative and/or subjective material, I cannot see how any translator can afford to eschew the use of some kind of MT. It can double o... See more There's often a false dichotomy in this debate: human vs machine translation.
No one is saying that MT can completely replace human translation, especially with certain texts. Not yet, anyway ; )
But is it a powerful tool? You bet it is.
And it's getting better and better.
Unless you are translating extremely creative and/or subjective material, I cannot see how any translator can afford to eschew the use of some kind of MT. It can double or triple your output while increasing quality. ▲ Collapse
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Philip Lees wrote:
This topic has already been done to death and beyond, so I hope this poll question doesn't resurrect the same trolling posts we've had before.
Trolling? Aka having a different opinion?
I’d also say this is a topic that deserves to be revisited regularly as the MT gets better and as more and more translators succumb.
I enjoy language too much to let a machine do my work for me, but it certainly has its uses outside work.
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| Machineless translation | Jun 28, 2022 |
Ice Scream wrote:
I enjoy language too much to let a machine do my work for me
This conjures up the image of Chris "no machines" Translator, sitting in a tent and producing fabulous target output by candlelight, only pausing occasionally to sharpen his pencil with his teeth.
| | | | | Other checks | Jun 28, 2022 |
neilmac wrote:
I tried out Deepl on a long list of chemical names I had to translate a while ago and it made a lot of mistakes. However, as you say, it may have improved since then, but I'd still be wary about trusting it fully.
The trust is conditional. Any unknown technical term that is later flagged by Word's spell checker gets looked up and, if correct, added to the dictionary.
If it's wrong, I fix it. But that doesn't happen very often.
Whatever else one might say about MT, it has certainly improved vastly over the last few years. I think that for certain kinds of boilerplate text it may soon become as competent as a human translator, if it isn't already.
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 11:57
Member (2008)
Italian to English
Justin Peterson wrote:
But is it a powerful tool? You bet it is.
Are people still asking themselves questions and then answering them? You bet they are.
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