| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4] > | AI to hit 40% of jobs and worsen inequality, IMF says Thread poster: Peter Motte
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Neirda 
China
Local time: 03:46
Chinese to French
+ ...
| Another alternative | Jan 16 |
Maybe what will happen is that people will start doing things more casually like reading foreign newspaper or accessing local information easily in any language, which is a thing that would have never happened without versatile AI, and a market that would have never existed for professional translators anyway.
And that maybe companies that are serious about their translations will keep actual translators around, because AI will never be able to make the subtle context-sensitive deci... See more Maybe what will happen is that people will start doing things more casually like reading foreign newspaper or accessing local information easily in any language, which is a thing that would have never happened without versatile AI, and a market that would have never existed for professional translators anyway.
And that maybe companies that are serious about their translations will keep actual translators around, because AI will never be able to make the subtle context-sensitive decision making that a human translator will take the responsibility for.
And I'm saying all that being involved in extensive research on AI and trying to solve this very problem.
Maybe microwave makers will switch to AI from TM for their instruction manuals, so we'll all get slightly more readable booklets.
But really the market won't change that much. Or maybe demand will overall increase.
I mean I'm not an IMF genius so what do I know, but maybe. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Peter Motte
Belgium
Local time: 20:46
Member (2009)
English to Dutch
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | What life is about... | Jan 16 |
Euh, yes, we're starting to be philosophical... But, please, leave that out, our we start defending the life style of hermits in the desert.
Fact is there are sectors where there is a shortage of people, whereas in other sectors there are too many candidates.
To give an extreme example: too much people want to become an author. There simply isn't such a high demand for authors as there are candidates. That's a fact. So don't tell people how great the job is. Don't have schools... See more Euh, yes, we're starting to be philosophical... But, please, leave that out, our we start defending the life style of hermits in the desert.
Fact is there are sectors where there is a shortage of people, whereas in other sectors there are too many candidates.
To give an extreme example: too much people want to become an author. There simply isn't such a high demand for authors as there are candidates. That's a fact. So don't tell people how great the job is. Don't have schools making publicity for how great their courses are.
And the same goes for translators. The demand for translators will get lower. So don't tell people how great it is. That's just common sense. If all those willing become translators, then they will have to fight for the last pieces that are still available. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | What are you trying to say? | Jan 16 |
Neirda wrote:
Christopher Schröder wrote:
The trouble is that, like the peasants who didn't then get to drive the tractor, most translators aren't personally or professionally qualified to do anything else that pays remotely near what they currently earn.
Yet less people are starving today than then, go figure. You do know I could go on all day with any invention back to the wheel, right?
Yes, and I still wouldn't know what your point is...
| | | | | This AI boom has not improved anything in the translation market | Jan 17 |
Yesterday I suggested my company ditch cheap freelancers and get a good MT system that can learn. This was impossible with our previous system, but since people here have been writing about tools that are flexible and able to "see" context and tap into TMs and TBs (or just have the latter two abilities plus some flexibility), I thought it would be a good idea for them to get such a tool. They said they are already working on it. My suggestion had nothing to do with me wanting to take jobs away f... See more Yesterday I suggested my company ditch cheap freelancers and get a good MT system that can learn. This was impossible with our previous system, but since people here have been writing about tools that are flexible and able to "see" context and tap into TMs and TBs (or just have the latter two abilities plus some flexibility), I thought it would be a good idea for them to get such a tool. They said they are already working on it. My suggestion had nothing to do with me wanting to take jobs away from people; in fact, I never do freelance work for my company on weekends or holidays because the rates they are offering are very low and, unlike my previous employer, they don't want to be flexible and overpay a freelancer for having a job done well. The quality of outputs produced by most of those freelancers are commensurate with the rates they are paid, i. e. we will lose nothing and will gain both time and money by refusing to deal with those people.
This market is not for everyone, a guy from the street who has studied a foreign language will not be able to perform adequately and will be thrown overboard sooner or later unless he really has a talent for translation and is ready to invest a lot of energy in his work. I don't know where the percentage comes from, but yes, something like that is probably going to happen. Maybe I will have to leave the market too, but so far I haven't seen any MT results that would impress me as potentially capable of replacing my work: AI still can't do what I can and I don't think it's even moving positively in that direction. And yes, I admit that maybe this conclusion and anything else I write in forum posts along the same vein are examples of me being delusional due to my poor mental abilities ▲ Collapse
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Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 19:46
Member (2008)
Italian to English
[quote]Christopher Schröder wrote:
Neirda wrote:
less people are starving today
Yes, and I still wouldn't know what your point is...
I don't know what "less people" are. Sorry to hear they're starving, Maybe they should become "more people".
| | | | | Another one for the record | Jan 17 |
Tom in London wrote:
I don't know what "less people" are.
Yes, you do.
I think there are better ways of dealing with grammatical errors made by non-native speakers, such as ignoring them.
Especially ones like this that are routinely made by most natives.
| | | | Inge Schumacher
France
Local time: 20:46
Member (2023)
French to German
+ ...
Peter Motte wrote:
"You're working to make yourself become obsolete?"
Peter,
You said in a former posts:
1. "Everybody who's able should flee the translation business as soon as possible.
It has never been great, translators have always been treated badly, now it's completely over."
2. "I completely agree on that "unlikely to completely replace human translators".
Question is how much of the current translation work AI ... See more Peter Motte wrote:
"You're working to make yourself become obsolete?"
Peter,
You said in a former posts:
1. "Everybody who's able should flee the translation business as soon as possible.
It has never been great, translators have always been treated badly, now it's completely over."
2. "I completely agree on that "unlikely to completely replace human translators".
Question is how much of the current translation work AI will leave to us.
50%? 25%? 10%?"
Even if it's 50%, that means half of the translators are out of work, or lots of us are left with a serious decrease of work load.
"And although I can understand that from a business perspective, it becomes a dangerous lie if translation schools, translation educational institutions and translation associations start to do that, because they draw in newbies for an insecure future.
And that's criminal."
Q: So, what is the sense of your question? Am I working to make myself become obsolete?
A: There's no point in burying our heads in the sand to avoid seeing what's going on around us!
"Breaking news" from FB "I've just heard that several members of the Dutch WCS Group of translation agencies, including Bothof, have gone bankrupt."
And
Agencies are looking for reviewers able to track cheating behaviour of MT-translators "as MT and AI become more and more of a threat to the business models of translation companies, we need your help keeping humans in the loop".
It's NOT ME who is creating this situation, I'm just adapting to it!
"Intelligence is the set of processes that enable us to learn, understand or adapt to new situations."
[Bearbeitet am 2024-01-17 12:11 GMT]
[Bearbeitet am 2024-01-17 12:13 GMT]
[Bearbeitet am 2024-01-17 12:13 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Zea_Mays
Italy
Local time: 20:46
English to German
+ ...
| "It's NOT ME who is creating this situation, I'm just adapting to it! " | Jan 17 |
like it's not a drop of water that makes the ocean.
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Peter Motte
Belgium
Local time: 20:46
Member (2009)
English to Dutch
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | Technial is difficult because of... | Jan 17 |
Lieven Malaise wrote:
Technical manuals have always been a notorious field of terrible translation work, so it seems a little naive to think quality is of the utmost importance. On top of that: as someone who has translated numerous manuals in the past decades and still does, I can guarantee you that MT is an aid, not an obstacle for technical translations.
Technical translations are difficult for various reasons.
I'll give you one example from a manual for a lift truck I'm working on at the moment:
This bug causes problems when scanning operator cards, resulting in misread card strings.
Now: "string" in this sense should be "tekenreeks" in Dutch. That would be the correct translation.
However, I stress "would", because in IT they usually do not translate "string" but leave it as it is.
Why? Because the IT people don't know any better, that's way.
But that means that if I translate "card string" by "kaarttekenreeks", they'll reject the translation.
Moreover: in the legacy translations, "string" appears a few times, and it's never translated.
So, the only thing I can do is keep "string" as such and consider it as "technical language".
It's not a matter of "terrible translation work", it's that you as a translator don't have much choice.
I have an IT dictionnary with translations for lots of IT words, but the clients never accept them. As a matter of fact, as a beginner I lost a client when I applied it.
| | | | Lingua 5B
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Local time: 20:46
Member (2009)
English to Croatian
+ ...
I had several direct clients (owners of technical/engineering companies like machinery) who had concerns about audits, etc.
They are legally bound to issue a technical manual in the target country (laws regarding work safety and other laws).
These owners do not care a tiny bit if someone gets injured due to an incomplete or inaccurate safety protocol resulting from MT shenanigans, but they feared audits a lot (I could feel/hear stress and fear in their voice on a phone ... See more I had several direct clients (owners of technical/engineering companies like machinery) who had concerns about audits, etc.
They are legally bound to issue a technical manual in the target country (laws regarding work safety and other laws).
These owners do not care a tiny bit if someone gets injured due to an incomplete or inaccurate safety protocol resulting from MT shenanigans, but they feared audits a lot (I could feel/hear stress and fear in their voice on a phone call), because revisory and regulatory representatives can't wait to conduct and audit, find mistakes and fine them. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Lieven Malaise
Belgium
Local time: 20:46
Member (2020)
French to Dutch
+ ...
What you are describing is not terrible translation work, but a matter of terminological agreement between you and the customer.
Terribly translated manuals are manuals full of spelling, grammar and translation errors.
| | | | IrinaN
United States
Local time: 13:46
English to Russian
+ ...
| All the wrong questions | Jan 17 |
Lieven Malaise wrote:
Terribly translated manuals are manuals full of spelling, grammar and translation errors.
I have never met anyone, including top-notch translators, who would return an excellent washing machine or a stove because of a poorly translated manual . I have never heard of anyone being sued or dead exclusively because of a poorly translated manual. There are light years between "Oh, thank you, our wonderful translator, for pointing out that bad mistake" and an actual industrial emergency. We are very important but not that important I have never met a couple of modest middle-class retirees rushing out of a simple but clean and affordable B&B on the beach screaming "Honey, grammar and punctuation in their brochure are awful, we are moving to a waterfront Ritz now!" Will I ever skip a restaurant with hilariously translated but mouthwatering menu and a great chef? No, I'd rather advertise it as an extra fun on vacation.
A 64-dollar question is - should you advise your kid or a grandkid to become a professional translator today, will you be prepared to breastfeed him till your last breath? Times when any beginner could charge at least .12 USD without funny matches from the start (mind the cost of living back then) are gone, gone forever. So to heck with equality (there has never been any equality in any high-paying field), philosophy, and perfectionism for just one quick moment. Another question is - will "old-style" translation, praised by the oldtimers with 20-40 years of solid experience under their belts as an excellent source of comfortable living, remain a profession ensuring any kind of half-decent self-subsistence or at least survivability for a newbie trying to break into the translation market in 2023?
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Peter Motte wrote:
Euh, yes, we're starting to be philosophical... But, please, leave that out, our we start defending the life style of hermits in the desert.
Fact is there are sectors where there is a shortage of people, whereas in other sectors there are too many candidates.
To give an extreme example: too much people want to become an author. There simply isn't such a high demand for authors as there are candidates. That's a fact. So don't tell people how great the job is. Don't have schools making publicity for how great their courses are.
And the same goes for translators. The demand for translators will get lower. So don't tell people how great it is. That's just common sense. If all those willing become translators, then they will have to fight for the last pieces that are still available.
What you say about universities continuing to churn out tranlators is so true. It also applies to all universities offering humanities degrees and trying to convince the students (and everyone else) that the "skills" they learn studying, let's say English literature (to use just one example), are somehow going to be easily transferable to the world of work, which, as far as I'm concerned, is a lie.
| | | | Zea_Mays
Italy
Local time: 20:46
English to German
+ ...
Gerard Barry wrote:
What you say about universities continuing to churn out tranlators is so true. It also applies to all universities offering humanities degrees and trying to convince the students (and everyone else) that the "skills" they learn studying, let's say English literature (to use just one example), are somehow going to be easily transferable to the world of work, which, as far as I'm concerned, is a lie.
There is demand of people with humanities degrees in all sectors where you have to deal with people, for example in banks, because among other things they have better soft skills.
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 19:46
Member (2008)
Italian to English
Christopher Schröder wrote:
Tom in London wrote:
I don't know what "less people" are.
Yes, you do.
I think there are better ways of dealing with grammatical errors made by non-native speakers, such as ignoring them.
Especially ones like this that are routinely made by most natives.
Thanks for the advice. I'll try to remember what you said.
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