Is the Translation industry dying because of Artificial intelligence?

Communication between nations

Since the dawn of time, communication was and still is the biggest influential tool humans use between different regions to make business and mutually beneficial relationships.

As Humans evolved communication evolved too! Translation became a big part of everyday work between nations.

The big surprise the AI holds for Translators:

As Artificial Intelligence (AI) is evolving, would that mean that the human translators will soon be jobless?

Let’s learn more about how AI works to be able to respond to that important question:

Artificial Intelligence AI is developed through pattern recognition. As we repeat the same patterns millions of times, the AI will have the right solution then.

If we take the example of “Google translate”, it works as Neural Machine Translation (NMT) meaning that, if I send an input in the French language, the output data would be English let’s say. Now, to be able to give the right answer in English, the computer after this action repeated millions of times, will learn which answer is the best and therefore will be able to translate. The engineers behind NMT will add a new sentence not used during the training sessions and will then see if the system learned how to generalize.

Of course, we all know “Google translate” and used it a lot of times, and we know when it makes imprecisions! Me as an Arabic speaker, I still see many deficiencies in the translation from English or French to Arabic on an NMT as Google translate, but the computer is revolving and learning fast!

So Google Translate uses NMT for widely used languages but for languages like the Arabic Language, which is a difficult language having different meanings for the same words, it’s still a primary translator with errors.

NMT cannot be used without the draft corrections of Human translators:

As we can conclude, although AI had evolved a lot in 10 years, it still has milestones and evolution to overcome!

Human translators still win until now, and our Dubbing Studios  www.arabianbeat.com are live witnesses! We cannot finish the translation of Dubbing projects without human Translators, especially while translating to Arabic, spoken for millions of Arabs across the Globe.

Human translators worldwide are using NMT engines like “Google Translate” and are editing those translations, up to this date, it needs editing!

But the good news for the AI industry is that in 2 years from now, businesses will be relying massively on NMT to do their business translations and will only use human editors for clean-ups. This is very good since it is low cost and time efficient!!

WHAT ABOUT THE FUTURE OF TECHNOLOGY?

Well, we have super advancements like electronic earbuds that can translate the speech of a language live and then play it back to you in your native language.

 Of course, it’s not as accurate as a professional interpreter but it’s a good assistant for travelers and businesses!

Finally, do you think that AI and NMT will change our lives and succeed more than human Intelligence?

JENNIFER AOUAD

Industrial Engineer | University Teacher

Certified Digital Marketing Analyst & Strategist | DMI Morgan Int

Saint Joseph University Instructor | USJ Beirut

General Manager | Founder @

361 Solution Digital Video Production

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Business Development Manager @

Arabian Beat Studios Audio Production

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