Translation & Technology: A Threat or A Blessing in Disguise?

Translation & Technology: A Threat or A Blessing in Disguise?

Be aware, the robots and AI technologies are coming for us translators!

But … they could’ve come in peace, right?

As we know, our world today is constantly evolving to be better, faster, and more connected than ever. Technology, whether we like it or not, is not going anywhere. We ,humans, have become unable to disconnect ourselves from the online world to the point where the idea of living without an internet connection for a week is insane. Having said that, technology has affected everything we know of, including translation.

Major companies have invested billions of dollars in translation technologies to shrink the gap between users around the world. In other words, their mission is to make the common saying “lost in translation” a struggle from the past. Google, for example, has taken the lead with many tools and apps for translation such as their translator app and also Google Glasses where we get to translate a text by simply staring at it. Not only translating, but interpreting can be achieved in seconds by Skype’s built-in tool when making a video call.

So, are we going bankrupt? Not really. Languages are quite different in their structures and uses and getting an exact match is not always possible in every language. To this day, an ultimate translation machine working fully on its own where every single meaning is translated to get a high-quality translation is nowhere to be found. Until then, we are still safe and sound.

We cannot deny the fact that technology affects us translators in a tremendous way. It helped us immensely with finding the meaning of foreign words at online dictionaries, searching for terms in an online terminology database, and using the Internet to access an almost infinite range of information and comparable texts. Being a translator nowadays has never been easier.

Instead of hating on those robots or being anxious about them taking over our jobs, it is better to imagine a future where translators and robots are holding hands in unity to come up with a perfect one of a kind translation.

Resourses:

An article by Desmond Fisher, a translator at the Translation Bureau.

Stuart Dredge, The Guardian article.

Written by: Raghad Almalki

First Edit by: Leena Aldosari

Final Edit by: Dr.Dawlat Nadhrah