“I lost 60% of my turnover in a few months,” says a freelance translator

All summer long, we interview employees, civil servants, self-employed people, and business leaders about their relationship with generative artificial intelligence. How do they use it, how do it change their professional practices? Today: Virginie Maisonobe, translator.

Virginie Maisonobe is 42 years old. It was a bit by chance that she arrived in the translation world, 17 years ago, after studying languages ​​and then journalism. At the time, she was living in Berlin, she started by translating software, then she gradually specialized in e-commerce, translating websites, brochures, catalogs, product sheets, or newsletters. Today, she works freelance, from her home, in Clermont-Ferrand. Last summer, generative artificial intelligence made a sensational entrance into her professional practice.

“I received an email from a client, he announced that he had decided to change the way we were going to collaborate. Instead of translation, he asked me to proofread texts that he himself had had translated by ChatGPT. I already had in mind that AI was going to revolutionize my job, I said yes, thinking that we would see later. And that’s how it started.”

Virginie Maisonobe, translator

to franceinfo

A few weeks later, another client contacted her. This time, to break off the collaboration completely. One thing led to another, and the translator lost 60% of her turnover between August and December 2023.

“It was dazzling, I had a hard time believing it because these were clients I had been working with for a very long time and who were satisfied with my work. When you are self-employed, working on a contract, you know that it can stop at any time. But it was still a shock to lose such a part of my turnover, in a few months. It was as if my skills and years of experience no longer had any value, overnight.”

Virginie Maisonobe

to franceinfo

A job that involves proofreading and correcting a text pre-translated by generative artificial intelligence or by a machine translation tool. “Post-editing is like assembly line work. We are asked to work much faster, on much larger volumes. We have less opportunity to ask the client questions when there is a problem of understanding.

And above all, there is little room for creativity. Even if e-commerce is not literary translation, translating a slogan, a newsletter title, marketing texts, can still be a source of creativity for a translator. That’s what made me happy in this work. And now, it interests me much less than before.”

“I have nothing against AI, but I don’t want to be passive in the face of this new technology, because I’m sure it will sweep over all professions. I want to use it actively. I preferred to change direction and use my skills in a field that seems less threatened to me.”

Virginie Maisonobe

to franceinfo

Virginie Maisonobe is joining a company this summer as a trilingual web SEO (German, English, French).