| Pages in topic: [1 2 3 4] > | Do translators have a death wish? Thread poster: Tom in London
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Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 14:23
Member (2008)
Italian to English
Reading these forums, I get the impression that many translators see disaster ahead, and support their contention by putting forward "evidence" and "arguments" that seem to validate it.
Thus convinced that the entire translation industry is going to hell in a handcart, they spend their days telling everyone else how bad it is and how much worse it's going to be. Do you fall into that category?
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These days, people seem to be scared to death by their own shadow. Every rumour in the press and other online resources is magnified exponentially and taken for the absolute truth.
I'm not one of them. I just keep calm and carry on. I can't change whichever way things are going, and it wouldn't help to worry about them.
There's no doubt technology will make some things in our industry evolve. My view is that it's better to find out how to benefit from it than to resist ... See more These days, people seem to be scared to death by their own shadow. Every rumour in the press and other online resources is magnified exponentially and taken for the absolute truth.
I'm not one of them. I just keep calm and carry on. I can't change whichever way things are going, and it wouldn't help to worry about them.
There's no doubt technology will make some things in our industry evolve. My view is that it's better to find out how to benefit from it than to resist it. ▲ Collapse
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Over my long years as a translator, I’ve heard so many downfall theories about the future of translation that I’m just bored to death by all of them. I started translating professionally (part-time) in the late 1970s to complement my income. I used to write my first draft by hand, and then type it up very carefully on a manual typewriter. Those were the days when correcting the slightest mistake seemed like an almost insuperable task: re-typing all over again (before the age of the correctio... See more Over my long years as a translator, I’ve heard so many downfall theories about the future of translation that I’m just bored to death by all of them. I started translating professionally (part-time) in the late 1970s to complement my income. I used to write my first draft by hand, and then type it up very carefully on a manual typewriter. Those were the days when correcting the slightest mistake seemed like an almost insuperable task: re-typing all over again (before the age of the correction tape and the correcting fluid). Long are gone those days, before computers, Internet, CATs, TMs, PEMT, AI, artificial neural networks and what else. I’ve witnessed and enjoyed a lot of a change and I’m still here. The fact is that a human translator has something that a computer will never have: instinct for what it is to be human. In short, human translators will just have to become more adaptable but they will always be needed. ▲ Collapse
| | | | IrinaN
United States
Local time: 08:23
English to Russian
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| Just translators? | Apr 10, 2023 |
I'm beginning to worry about the following much more than MT etc:
https://www.blinkist.com/magazine/posts/us-investors-berlin-startup
I have too much to say about it and don't want to hijack the thread. I want to put all my thoughts together and start a new discussion. Just one statement:
*** Reading a book means more than simply f... See more I'm beginning to worry about the following much more than MT etc:
https://www.blinkist.com/magazine/posts/us-investors-berlin-startup
I have too much to say about it and don't want to hijack the thread. I want to put all my thoughts together and start a new discussion. Just one statement:
*** Reading a book means more than simply following the author’s narrative ***
Those pretty toddlers who came up with this startup think they know it all... They don't even comprehend the concept of the ability and desire to read and long for coming back to favorite lines and pages to discover even more, which is the most important thing that separates us from animals and keeps us humans... No offence to animals. Brace yourselves!
Please don't steal the subject from Tom, I didn't mean it. I'll give a chance to discuss it in a different post soon. ▲ Collapse
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I think the writing is on the wall for translation as we know it.
And much as I like to see myself as an artist and wordsmith, in reality much of what I translate doesn’t really need or deserve the magic I put into it. I imagine that applies to most, if not all, of us here.
So even for me as a pretty high-end translator, I think the future is bleak. I don’t want to edit MT for a living. I want to be a proper translator.
I might just make it to retiremen... See more I think the writing is on the wall for translation as we know it.
And much as I like to see myself as an artist and wordsmith, in reality much of what I translate doesn’t really need or deserve the magic I put into it. I imagine that applies to most, if not all, of us here.
So even for me as a pretty high-end translator, I think the future is bleak. I don’t want to edit MT for a living. I want to be a proper translator.
I might just make it to retirement (another seven years) but I’m no longer sure. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Lieven Malaise
Belgium
Local time: 15:23
Member (2020)
French to Dutch
+ ...
| I definitely don't | Apr 10, 2023 |
Repeatedly whining about the changing translation industry is the definition of being pathetic as far as I'm concerned. It's like grumpy old men or women who can't cope with the fact that society changes and life isn't the same anymore as it used to be 50 years ago. Get a life, for crying out loud (for exemple by leaving the industry and start doing something that makes you happy again).
| | | | Baran Keki 
Türkiye
Local time: 16:23
Member
English to Turkish
Lieven Malaise wrote:
Repeatedly whining about the changing translation industry is the definition of being pathetic as far as I'm concerned. It's like grumpy old men or women who can't cope with the fact that society changes and life isn't the same anymore as it used to be 50 years ago. Get a life, for crying out loud (for exemple by leaving the industry and start doing something that makes you happy again).
Equally annoying are those who appear to be waxing lyrical about the capabilities of ChatGPT and MT at every opportunity. That's a death wish right there: why alert agencies to the fact? Can't you bloody keep schtum and benefit from them in your privacy? Why do you feel the need to let the whole world (well, a forum that might be followed closely by the translation industry) know about it? Some things should better be kept secret imho.
[Edited at 2023-04-10 19:54 GMT]
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...because I know that parts of my very soul as a translator will still be alive in the material that has trained DeepL and all the other neuronal AI systems. So when in 40 years younger colleagues will be confronted with results containing blasphemous content, chances are high that it's me who sends his regards from some translator's hell or heaven.
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Lieven Malaise
Belgium
Local time: 15:23
Member (2020)
French to Dutch
+ ...
Baran Keki wrote:
Some things should better be kept secret imho.
How do you keep something secret that isn't even remotely secret ? There are free machine translation engines out there waiting to be tested by everybody who wants to. And it costs you hardly more than 50 euros a year to take a subscription and test the extended capabilities of MT.
What secret are you talking about ? How do you think translators like you and me get to know MT ? Through a secret society that gathers once a month in a basement ?
Why do you think translation agencies are brainless or brain dead ?
| | | | Frank Zou
China
Local time: 21:23
Member (2016)
Chinese to English
+ ...
Much of my work can indeed be accomplished by AI, such as ChatGPT, which is undoubtedly the most efficient and intelligent multilingual "entity" in the world. However, I am worried about AI's emergence in the market and its potential to drastically reduce my income. Nevertheless, I don't think that AI can completely replace human translators, particularly when it comes to texts intended to fulfill vocative functions. Although AI can translate such texts, it may not be able to achieve the intende... See more Much of my work can indeed be accomplished by AI, such as ChatGPT, which is undoubtedly the most efficient and intelligent multilingual "entity" in the world. However, I am worried about AI's emergence in the market and its potential to drastically reduce my income. Nevertheless, I don't think that AI can completely replace human translators, particularly when it comes to texts intended to fulfill vocative functions. Although AI can translate such texts, it may not be able to achieve the intended text functions. Additionally, literature presents a significant challenge that I doubt AI can overcome. Due to the inherent ambiguity of natural language, I believe that AI can only replace human translators when people communicate using mathematical language. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Baran Keki
Türkiye
Local time: 16:23
Member
English to Turkish
| What I meant was | Apr 11, 2023 |
Lieven Malaise wrote:
What secret are you talking about ? How do you think translators like you and me get to know MT ? Through a secret society that gathers once a month in a basement ?
Of course you can't keep the existence of MT and ChatGPT a secret, that would be a daft thing to say. What I meant was that people (especially the people from agencies who might be reading these forums) don't need to know how effing fantastic the results delivered by DeepL or ChatGPT are. Of course, most of them are doing this unwittingly in a spirit of pessimism, fatalism, defeatism as referred by the OP here, but there are also those who seem to be positively in awe of this stuff, and can't seem to be getting enough of it! Just read that ChatGPT thread here. I learned thanks to that thread that the results provided by ChatGPT in "Javascript, PHP, SQL, Python and many others were amazing."
I mean why don't you keep your opinion to yourself?
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 14:23
Member (2008)
Italian to English
TOPIC STARTER
Ice Scream wrote:
I think the writing is on the wall for translation as we know it.
And much as I like to see myself as an artist and wordsmith, in reality much of what I translate doesn’t really need or deserve the magic I put into it. I imagine that applies to most, if not all, of us here.
So even for me as a pretty high-end translator, I think the future is bleak. I don’t want to edit MT for a living. I want to be a proper translator.
I might just make it to retirement (another seven years) but I’m no longer sure.
That suggests that the type of text you translate is very mechanical. You're correct that mechanical text will no longer need to be translated by humans. That leaves the rest of us to get on with the interesting stuff.
[Edited at 2023-04-11 06:57 GMT]
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| Another question | Apr 11, 2023 |
Lieven Malaise wrote:
How do you keep something secret that isn't even remotely secret ? There are free machine translation engines out there waiting to be tested by everybody who wants to. And it costs you hardly more than 50 euros a year to take a subscription and test the extended capabilities of MT.
What secret are you talking about ? How do you think translators like you and me get to know MT ? Through a secret society that gathers once a month in a basement ?
Why do you think translation agencies are brainless or brain dead ?
Did you leave your sense of humour on a bus somewhere?
| | | | | Getting personal | Apr 11, 2023 |
Tom in London wrote:
That suggests that the type of text you translate is very mechanical. You're correct that mechanical text will no longer need to be translated by humans. That leaves the rest of us to get on with the interesting stuff.
So if, by way of experiment, we were to take your first translation sample…
La pandemia e la necessità di produrre e distribuire in tutto il mondo i vaccini ha fatto emergere gli effetti negativi del protezionismo nel commercio mondiale. Da questo punto di vista la lotta al Covid ha fatto riscoprire l'irreversibilità di un approccio multilaterale?
… and run it through Google Translate…
The pandemic and the need to produce and distribute vaccines around the world has brought out the negative effects of protectionism in world trade. From this point of view, has the fight against Covid made us rediscover the irreversibility of a multilateral approach?
… and compare it with your human translation…
The pandemic, and the need to manufacture and distribute vaccines all over the world, has revealed the negative effects that protectionism has on world trade. In that sense has the fight against Covid led to a rediscovery that the multilateral approach should be irreversible?
… would you just put the near-identical wording down to chance, or would you be honest enough to agree with me that more texts are mechanical than we might like to think, perhaps indeed any text that isn’t badly written?
Which reminds me. Have any of the MT evangelists here factored in the implications of more and more source texts being written by AI? Surely ChatGPT has to be able to translate its own output perfectly well without human involvement. So where will that leave you?
| | | | | Gradually, then suddenly. | Apr 11, 2023 |
This topic has been treated here and elsewhere I don’t know how many times. The new element now is the death wish, which those concerned about the future of the industry are supposed to harbor. Really?
I don’t have one. Still I believe that the industry as we know it is a goner. Not this year and probably not next year either. But what about in five or even ten years?. Newbies hoping to earn their livelihoods and possibly even have a family, better think twice and consider your other o... See more This topic has been treated here and elsewhere I don’t know how many times. The new element now is the death wish, which those concerned about the future of the industry are supposed to harbor. Really?
I don’t have one. Still I believe that the industry as we know it is a goner. Not this year and probably not next year either. But what about in five or even ten years?. Newbies hoping to earn their livelihoods and possibly even have a family, better think twice and consider your other options before you jump.
It’s only a few years back that google translate was good for any number of laughs. The technology has advanced in leaps and bounds, as we all know. Not to perfection. And the human touch is missing. But perfection is a chimera and the human touch is appreciated most by those who depend on it for a living, and perhaps less so by those who have to pay for it.
Technology has a tendency to assert itself, against all odds. Gradually, then suddenly.
[Edited at 2023-04-11 08:47 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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