Machine Translation vs. Human Translation: How AI is Revolutionizing the Way We Handle Languages

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has pervaded various aspects of our lives in recent years. With the increased amount of digital content available today, Machine Translation (MT) has emerged as a practical and fast solution for businesses to handle their translation needs. For years, giant tech companies have been capturing data and developing algorithms to perform language translation. But the question still remains, are these platforms capable of replacing human translation completely? How long would it take for this to happen?

Human language is one of the hardest things for machines to figure out. According to the MIT Technology Review, modern translation technology “takes advantage of the fact that relationships between certain words, like tree and leaves or shoes and socks, are similar across languages. This lets the AI look at clusters and connections from one language and learn about how another language works.”

Generally, machines can examine one word or phrase at a time. Translating long paragraphs or complicated speech segments this way, will weaken the structure and context of any language. It also might convey the opposite meaning of what the writer or speaker is trying to convey. Besides, in a contextualized scenario, AI still can’t grasp human's humor, notions, feelings, tone, metaphor, or symbolism.

A professional translator can immediately spot whether a translation was done by a human or a machine. Moreover, many words have multiple meanings, and can only be translated based on the context of the other words around them. For example, in a legal context, the word “warrant”, has eleven different meanings. Even with the most advanced technology and translation tools, we still need a human translator who is an expert in legal translations to understand the context and select the right meaning.

Despite its speed, efficiency, and ease of use, machine translation still has its limitations. One can say that it has definitely revolutionized the language service industry and pushed it a huge step forward, but human touch in this domain is still indispensable. Some people even argue that a perfect AI translator may still be decades away.

In today’s language industry, technology plays a fundamental role. Nonetheless, the human element is crucial to supervise and leverage on machine’s agility.