Let me first share a story that happened last week while I was interpreting training sessions related to the implementation of environmental and safety software for a mining company.
At the beginning of the training session, an employee working for the mining company pointed out that the software’s translation of the phrase “Near Miss” was shown as “Casi Señorita.”
Part of the software’s user interface had been translated using AI with no human review/input of the resulting translation. Although it can be funny to see such an egregious mis-translation, – the material point is that it is irresponsible, negligent and careless to use AI without human review and input of the final product.
My view, therefore, is that AI will not eliminate the need for translators, at least not yet. With thousands of posts, blogs, discussions and even arguments every day about the role of AI in translation and interpretation, there is no question that the use of AI and/or machine translation is accelerating.
While this is not necessarily a bad thing in and of itself, AI is nowhere near far enough along nor mature enough to not require human review/input before being published, particularly when it relates to health and safety issues. When we talk items affecting human life, close enough is not good enough.
Any other thoughts out there?
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