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I know translators who did, they couldn’t make a living with it anymore.

by layer8 10mo ago

satvikpendem 10mo ago
AI cannot do translators' jobs fully, these companies hire (or hire back) people who check the translation and fix mistakes.
- layer8 10mo ago
  These review people already did exist before with human translations, and it’s also not their full-time job.
  - satvikpendem 10mo ago
    From the few translators I know, they're expected to do it all, rather than having others to review as well. I don't know how it is in big companies but I don't understand why they'd have separate review people alongside translators, seems like redundant effort.
    - layer8 10mo ago
      Companies that commission translation routinely check the results, to make sure they receive the expected quality and that the domain-specific details are correct. They may check less once they gained confidence with a translator, but the same is true to some extent with LLMs. In any case, “reviewer of LLM translations” doesn’t exist as a full-time job to anywhere near the extent that “translator” used to be.
      - satvikpendem 10mo ago
        That makes sense from the client side and I wouldn't expect that's what people mean when they say translator jobs are being automated.
        layer8 10mo ago
        The question was whether jobs are being lost due to AI, not whether translations are fully automated. If translations would support the same amount of jobs in translation review as previously for human translation themselves, companies wouldn’t save money by using AI for translation. But that’s not what’s happened: pricing has fallen dramatically for human translation, because AI makes it cheaper, and the fallen prices mean that many translators couldn’t make a living from it anymore.
        satvikpendem 10mo ago
        Where does it show that jobs have actually been lost? That is the part I am skeptical about. The roles of my translator acquaintances were shifted to review, not lost wholesale.
        frm88 10mo ago
        In fact, for each 1 percentage point increase in MT usage, translator employment growth dropped by approximately 0.7 percentage points. Cumulatively, this effect translates into an estimated loss of about 28,000 new translator positions that might otherwise have been created over the 2010–2023 period. https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/lost-translation-ais-impact-translators-and-foreign-language-skills https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/lost-translation-ais-impact-t...
        satvikpendem 10mo ago
        Talking about jobs that "might have been" created is disingenuous, the same as saying pirates "steal" copies they "might have" otherwise paid for. Even setting that aside, are there any confounding factors in that report? That would be my primary question because for many other industries, companies are using AI as the excuse, not the actual reason, to lay people off.

I know translators who did, they couldn’t make a living with it anymore.

by layer8 10mo ago

I know translators who did, they couldn’t make a living with it anymore.

AI cannot do translators' jobs fully, these companies hire (or hire back) people who check the translation and fix mistakes.

layer8 10mo ago
These review people already did exist before with human translations, and it’s also not their full-time job.
- satvikpendem 10mo ago
  From the few translators I know, they're expected to do it all, rather than having others to review as well. I don't know how it is in big companies but I don't understand why they'd have separate review people alongside translators, seems like redundant effort.
  - layer8 10mo ago
    Companies that commission translation routinely check the results, to make sure they receive the expected quality and that the domain-specific details are correct. They may check less once they gained confidence with a translator, but the same is true to some extent with LLMs. In any case, “reviewer of LLM translations” doesn’t exist as a full-time job to anywhere near the extent that “translator” used to be.
    - satvikpendem 10mo ago
      That makes sense from the client side and I wouldn't expect that's what people mean when they say translator jobs are being automated.
      - layer8 10mo ago
        The question was whether jobs are being lost due to AI, not whether translations are fully automated. If translations would support the same amount of jobs in translation review as previously for human translation themselves, companies wouldn’t save money by using AI for translation. But that’s not what’s happened: pricing has fallen dramatically for human translation, because AI makes it cheaper, and the fallen prices mean that many translators couldn’t make a living from it anymore.
        satvikpendem 10mo ago
        Where does it show that jobs have actually been lost? That is the part I am skeptical about. The roles of my translator acquaintances were shifted to review, not lost wholesale.
        frm88 10mo ago
        In fact, for each 1 percentage point increase in MT usage, translator employment growth dropped by approximately 0.7 percentage points. Cumulatively, this effect translates into an estimated loss of about 28,000 new translator positions that might otherwise have been created over the 2010–2023 period. https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/lost-translation-ais-impact-translators-and-foreign-language-skills https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/lost-translation-ais-impact-t...
        satvikpendem 10mo ago
        Talking about jobs that "might have been" created is disingenuous, the same as saying pirates "steal" copies they "might have" otherwise paid for. Even setting that aside, are there any confounding factors in that report? That would be my primary question because for many other industries, companies are using AI as the excuse, not the actual reason, to lay people off.