Why should I pay a human when AI can translate for me?
This is a worthwhile question with everything we've heard and read about AI over the past several years. However, this idea stems from a misunderstanding of the actual process of translation.
Read on to learn why we will always need human translators regardless of how much AI improves.
1. There is no correct translation
Rather, there is no single correct translation. There are certainly wrong translations, but no single translation can be considered "The Perfect Translation." This is because there are hundreds, if not thousands, of ways to interpret and express an idea with different shades of meaning, and each can be as valid as the other.
You can test this yourself using the same text with different AI models. Each model will give you different results, and they all might be considered accurate. Even the same model will give you a different answer when prompted to regenerate a response.
A human translator's role here is to use their understanding of the nuances of the source text, the culture of the target audience, and a multitude of other factors to decide on which translation is the most suitable.
2. AI is only as good as the data it is trained on.
If you have seen any AI photos or videos, you will likely know how much AI struggles with the number of fingers on a human hand.
This is because it doesn't inherently "know" the number of fingers humans have. It bases its response on the data used to train it. The photos used to train the models show multiple fingers on a hand. However, as many images show hands in positions where not all fingers are visible, it only sees patterns of multiple fingers on a hand. Based on this data, six fingers can be as valid on a hand as three fingers.
When applied to translation, clear problems emerge when taking a text from Spanish to English as there are clear data biases. For example, AI assumes in most cases that the subject in a sentence is male, despite the context of a sentence clearly indicating the subject is a female. This is likely due to training data where men were more frequently the subject of a sentence.
3. Privacy Concerns
Speaking of the data used to train AI, any text you provide to an AI system will be stored in their systems and used to train their model(s). For many use cases, this storage poses no problem.
However, if your text has any private information, there is a chance that someone, purposefully or by accident, could access that information later, potentially exposing you to privacy lawsuits.
It is possible to redact the text to remove all private information, but it would then need to be reinserted into the final translated text. And this is precisely a service a professional translator can provide.
4. Cultural Nuances
In Spain, "coger" is a very frequently used word. It means "to grab or to take." But in many of parts of the Spanish speaking world, it means "to f**k."
Residents in Buenos Aires may be quite shocked when a Spaniard arrives and asks where they should go to take the bus.
With this in mind, it is important to note there have already been cases of businesses offending their target market after using AI to translate their websites. The profits lost from the mistake would have paid for the translator's services many times over.
Trained translators not only take your text from one language to another; we also ensure it is tailored for your target audience, using the correct register, tone, and language.