Currently, one of the hottest questions in the translation field is the growing presence of AI. "It’s definitely been a hot topic in the industry, with an increasing number of conference talks popping up about it," Dot agrees. Yet, she says that we're still figuring out how translators can get the maximum benefits.
"Machine translation has been around for a while and it’s definitely getting better," Dot observes. "But it’s still not as good as human translation and I doubt it really ever will be."
She tells us she's seeing more translators offering MTPE (machine translation post-editing) as a service. MTPE means that a translator reviews and improves machine-translated text to make it more accurate and fluent.
Dot also says that she's aware of some automatic subtitle translation software. "But from what I’ve seen so far, it’s not amazing," she says honestly. Her outlook overall is positive.
"A lot of people are concerned about the future of translation with AI. But I think the more we understand it, the more we can hopefully use it to our advantage. It’ll be interesting to see how AI develops and shapes the industry!"
Naturally, we had to ask Dot if she has a favorite translation mishap. It's not hers, but one that she saw in Beijing while studying. "I think my favorite was in one of our textbooks. There was a list of dishes and their translations, and one of them was ‘squirrel sample fish’. Safe to say, I never ordered that one," Dot adds.
