AI in translation or AI against translation?
It all began with Google Translate. Since the very beginning this tool has been mocked by everyone, and the results of automatic translation were not necessarily suited to use in any shape or form. This, however, is a distant past!
Translation is an area in which AI has wreaked havoc. It's been dynamically evolving, and it's on its way to achieve perfect results. Are translators a profession that will inevitably - and quickly! - be replaced by AI? As we can see from the examples of several of our completed jobs, the situation is not as clear-cut. Here are two stories:
Anecdote no. 1
Client: international logistics company
Service: Native speaker proofreading of a quarterly investor report
Our regular Client requested us to edit an internally written report on the company's results, addressed to investors. The Client explicitly stated that there was an attempt to apply artificial intelligence to this task, but the resulting product did not meet the requirements. Why? The AI tool expressed too much optimism while adding changes to the text, the result of which was its overly positive tone, and modifications that implied the performance was better than it was in reality.
Anecdote no. 2
Client: international TV and film production company
Service: Audiovisual translation and subtitle preparation
While working on a new format of a TV show, we were asked to take a quick look at translations into English prepared by AI. It turned out that AI doesn't get cultural references, and has a huge problem with colloquial language and wordplay. "Covid" turned into "Bukowiec" and an expression "nie czarujmy się" ("let’s not kid ourselves") was translated by AI into: "let’s not be charming."
So, let’s not be charming, AI integrated itself in the world of translation and there is no sign of this trend reversing. Tools based on artificial intelligence can be surely useful for us translators in our everyday work - so that we can act quicker, make better use of available resources and maintain consistency. However, it will never replace sense of humor, knowledge of language nuances, and ability to understand subtext (and context).