How is artificial intelligence revolutionizing the world of translation? If this technology announces multiple avenues for better understanding the world, what profound and inevitable transformations does it bring for the profession of translator? A look at a rapidly evolving environment.
While visiting Toronto retirement homes, Joe Dai, co-founder of Aiko. (formerly Agile.), observed that between 10% and 20% of the elderly people encountered had difficulty understanding when employees spoke to them in English.
“Not only did not being able to talk to their caregivers isolate them, but some of them did not understand what their caregivers wanted them to do and felt a certain abuse linked to this lack of understanding,” laments the digital entrepreneur, met as part of the Collision event, which took place in Toronto from June 17 to 20.
In the United States, non-English speaking patients have a higher hospital readmission rate (20.4%) than those who are proficient in English (18.5%), revealed an analysis of 2022 data published in the ‘International Journal of Nursing Studies. To reduce these risks, Aiko. since May 2023, has been developing a physical device that translates a conversation in real time.
Being tested in two retirement homes in Toronto, the tool wants to give non-English speaking patients “the impression that they are having a fluid conversation with a native interpreter who translates in real time,” explains the co-founder of Aiko.
Artificial intelligence (AI) makes the process of translating online content faster and easier, making it more accessible than ever. Even though the translations produced by these technologies are imperfect and often require human review, their quality is increasing rapidly.
Alex Chernenko, CEO of the hybrid translation service (that is to say which uses AI and human expertise) Translit, judges that by “making any content, whatever its format, multilingual, it becomes by definition more inclusive and attractive.” He cites a 2020 CSA Research survey of 8,709 consumers revealing that 76% of them prefer to buy a product accompanied by information in a language they speak.
Prabal Gupta, director of RJE Inc., adds that “everyone should be able to not only be heard, but above all understood. No one should be left behind.” Using AI, RJE Inc. implements robotic call center agents customized to a company’s needs.
For Mr. Gupta, AI and instant translation allow different more marginalized and vulnerable communities, such as newcomers and the elderly, to have better access to certain services. He adds that his tool, currently available in a trial version, could ultimately be used by emergency services so that everyone can receive help regardless of their language.
Save time, save money
AI is essential to reduce a company’s costs related to translation and to offer a service available at all times, believes Mr. Gupta. An AI does not require paying salaries to call center employees and their trainers, in particular.
“For comparison, one of our competitors, who uses human translators, charges about 100 times more than what we charge: we’re talking about a rate of $4 per minute versus $0.04 per minute,” says Joe Dai , from the Aiko company.
The time saved by this type of technology is significant, estimates Richard Shi, vice-president of Videolocalize, a developing platform for instant video translation. “Translating a video by hand is a long process: transcribing the speech, recording a voiceover and writing subtitles takes a lot of time. Our platform does it much faster,” he says.
Translator, a profession in the process of transformation rather than disappearance
This surge in translation machines obviously has disruptive effects for the profession of translator. Is it headed to disappear in the face of a plethora of technological tools which are continually improving in quality and speed?
For Émile Arsenault, team leader at the professional translation firm Versacom, the advent of AI is moving the translation world at a speed never before observed. He is not talking about the disappearance of the profession, but rather an adaptation of it: “We are not a technology company, but obviously we must adopt technology if we want to remain competitive. “.
He adds that AI is leading to the creation of new “roles, such as director of techno-linguistic solutions. “It’s something we hadn’t considered as a position five years ago, but now it’s become an issue.”
Alex Chernenko argues that humans are still necessary in this environment, but that translation companies must imperatively modernize. “AI requires a change in skills and reskilling. […] Basically, humans won’t be replaced by AI, they will be replaced by humans using AI. »
The added value of the human perspective, particularly in more specialized areas requiring greater expertise, is important to underline, recalls Mr. Arsenault. More general texts, with a short lifespan or low strategic value, can benefit from automatic translation and revision carried out by LLMs, programs trained on data collected on the Internet.
However, more niche texts, containing jargon specific to law, in particular, benefit from being translated by human expertise rather than by a machine which risks “hallucinating” (i.e. producing false information) when she will be faced with a task beyond her abilities. At the beginning of June, Richard Wagner, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, called for “caution” regarding the translation of decisions.
Positive outlook on a changing environment
Despite the upheavals brought about by AI, translation companies Versacom and Translit are not defeatist. Mr. Arsenault “hopes that the translation community will be able to benefit” from the development of AI, which heralds “new avenues to make the work less tedious”. It already helps to spot typographical or careless errors, to correct certain layout details and to insert typographical signs.
“There will never be enough professional translators in the world to translate everything that is important. If what is less essential can be entrusted to a machine, professionals will be able to concentrate on what is important,” concludes Émile Arsenault.
Growth manager at Translit Marius Pranskunas sees AI as a particularly interesting tool for the public, to facilitate rapprochement between humans, necessary in a global context under high tension.