A common perception is that machine translation (MT) and AI are in the process of replacing human translators altogether. However, statistics show that while AI is playing a growing role in our industry, the demand for human translators has been increasing in recent years – despite advancements in AI translation technology.
Why is that? While AI has made significant progress in translating texts, it still struggles with nuances, cultural context, and idiomatic expressions that humans excel at understanding. Human translators offer quality, accuracy, and cultural sensitivity that AI cannot fully replicate. Furthermore, the demand for translation services has grown due to globalization, e-commerce, and international communication, creating a need for nuanced, human-mediated translation. This demand extends beyond business to encompass government agencies, healthcare providers, educational institutions, and individuals who need reliable translation services for diverse purposes.
Indeed, human translators alone would not be able to meet the constantly growing demand for translations, which is why many simple texts, where accuracy, cultural nuances, and idiomatically correct verbiage are not crucial, are now handled by machine translations. In many cases, MT output is being reviewed and improved upon by human translators for accuracy. So, while our workflow and our approach to translation are currently shifting, we human translators are still in high demand. This topic has recently been discussed in an article by GPB/NPR with some interesting statistics: https://www.gpb.org/news/planet-money/2024/06/18/if-ai-so-good-why-are-there-still-so-many-jobs-for-translators.