Continuous development of artificial intelligence and machine translation make many customers and translation specialists wonder if AI will replace human translators. However, to answer this question we first need to analyze what AI translation is.
What is MT and AI?
It turns out that artificial intelligence (AI) and machine translation (MT) aren’t the same thing.
Artificial intelligence denotes a complex branch of computer science that develops and utilizes smart machines which are able to perform tasks that used to be done by humans. It’s worth mentioning that AI translators are advanced tools that take advantage of AI to recognize speech or translate spoken and written language. Contrary to machine translators, this form is more precise, as it helps to avoid numerous misunderstandings, analyzes actual meanings of words, and takes into account relationships between them.
On the other hand, machine translation is the process that benefits from artificial intelligence in order to automate translation and render a source language message into a target language message without any human activity. MT takes into account individual words and doesn’t analyze their hidden meanings or relationships. It’s ideal for technical documentation and thoroughly structured texts, however, it’s not particularly accurate when dealing with marketing, literary and culture-specific content.
Benefits of AI translation
AI translation significantly facilitates the translation process and makes it more efficient. Its main advantages include:
- accessibility – most people have access to the Internet and various MT or AI tools. Thanks to these technologies, people can quickly and effectively communicate with each other even if they speak only one language.
- speed – AI translators need only a few seconds to translate even a few hundreds of words. As a result, both translators and regular speakers save lots of time they would normally spend checking dictionaries or consulting other linguistic resources.
- cost-effectiveness – AI and MT tools noticeably reduce the costs of translation and the time needed to prepare, proofread, and post-edit documents.
Taking all these benefits into consideration, one may wonder whether AI is likely to replace human translators.
Will AI replace translators?
Although artificial intelligence notably facilitates the translation process and makes it more efficient by saving the time of both linguists and customers, it’s worth noting that it can’t completely replace human translators, their expertise and valuable insights.
Machine and artificial intelligence translation makes it possible to grasp the general meaning of the source text, however, it’s not able to correctly localize it, render more complex or specific terms, and adapt the message to target audiences, their culture and concept of the world.
This can be done solely by a professional translator with deep knowledge of both source and target languages, target audiences, and cultures. Otherwise, the translation and its inaccuracy may cause misunderstandings.
Professional services at Acculing
At Acculing, we realize that different circumstances require different translations. For this reason, we do our best to tailor adopted strategies to the expectations and budgets of our customers. With Acculing, you get the best value for your money and effectively communicate your business message in a clear, precise way.