Interpreters and Translators

High Risk
74%

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Vote Comments (101)
AUTOMATION RISK
CALCULATED
70%
(High Risk)
POLLING
79%
(High Risk, Based on 1,991 votes)
Average: 74%
LABOR DEMAND
GROWTH
2.3%
by year 2033
WAGES
$57,090
or $27.44 per hour
Volume
51,560
as of 2023
SUMMARY
What does this snowflake show?
The Snowflake is a visual summary of the five badges: Automation Risk (calculated), Risk (polled), Growth, Wages and Volume. It gives you an instant snapshot of an occupations profile. The colour of the Snowflake relates to its size. The better the occupation scores in relation to others, the larger and greener the Snowflake becomes.
JOB SCORE
2.9/10
What's this?
Job Score (higher is better):

We rate jobs using four factors. These are:

- Chance of being automated
- Job growth
- Wages
- Volume of available positions

These are some key things to think about when job hunting.

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Calculated automation risk

70% (High Risk)

High Risk (61-80%): Jobs in this category face a significant threat from automation, as many of their tasks can be easily automated using current or near-future technologies.

More information on what this score is, and how it is calculated is available here.

Some quite important qualities of the job are difficult to automate:

  • Social Perceptiveness

  • Assisting and Caring for Others

  • Originality

User poll

79% chance of full automation within the next two decades

Our visitors have voted that it's probable this occupation will be automated. This assessment is further supported by the calculated automation risk level, which estimates 70% chance of automation.

What do you think the risk of automation is?

What is the likelihood that Interpreters and Translators will be replaced by robots or artificial intelligence within the next 20 years?

Sentiment

The following graph is shown where there are enough votes to produce meaningful data. It displays user poll results over time, providing a clear indication of sentiment trends.

Sentiment over time (quarterly)

Sentiment over time (yearly)

Growth

Slow growth relative to other professions.

The number of 'Interpreters and Translators' job openings is expected to rise 2.3% by 2033

Total employment, and estimated job openings

* Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for the period between 2023 and 2033
Updated projections are due 09-2025.

Wages

Moderately paid relative to other professions

In 2023, the median annual wage for 'Interpreters and Translators' was 57.090 $, or 27 $ per hour

'Interpreters and Translators' were paid 18.8% higher than the national median wage, which stood at 48.060 $

Wages over time

* Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics

Volume

Moderate range of job opportunities compared to other professions

As of 2023 there were 51,560 people employed as 'Interpreters and Translators' within the United States.

This represents around < 0.001% of the employed workforce across the country

Put another way, around 1 in 2 thousand people are employed as 'Interpreters and Translators'.

Job description

Interpret oral or sign language, or translate written text from one language into another.

SOC Code: 27-3091.00

Comments (101)

Leave a comment
Irene (Low)
06 Dec 2024 17:54
It depends on what you translate. If technical documents, sure, it will be automated. But if you translate fiction or poetry, it requires creativity.
Johanna Ellsworth
18 Mar 2024 18:34
Translators and texters are already scrambling for work at ridiculously low rates today (in 2024). I have seen several quotes made by German translator colleagues that are being "offered" payment of € 0,1 (approx. 1 USD) per word... I especially see the danger of future bland literature, media articles and movie scripts "created" by AI, which will shape future generations into creatures that won't think creatively, artistically and critically. Only that which is imperfect, i.e. slightly off, is art...
H. (Low)
07 Mar 2025 09:28
Translation is evolving. AI definitely can translate stuff for non language speakers but the professional community is aware of the fact that the AI is nowhere close to human translators at the moment.

Automation can incredibly speed up the process of translation but human element is a must. Also, in terms of transcreation and localisation for different contexts etc. the AI does not have enough understanding of culture and context regardless of the input.
Alejandro (Low)
04 Dec 2024 02:05
Interpreters have abilities to determine cultural and other linguistic niches that AI wont be able to pick up on, making interpreters unlikely to be replaced, however translators will be replaced by AI due to the ability of current AI to easily translate the language and written materials given,
Constantin (Moderate)
02 Jul 2024 07:00
AI is getting better and better at translating texts, however some of them still struggling with understanding the context, but I think this is just a matter of time
Aurelie Delaporte (Highly likely)
24 Mar 2025 19:11
I was a translator, but I was replaced by Google Translate.
Jason
05 Nov 2024 11:29
A.I. would not be able to interpret American Sign Language yet at this point, so would A.I. be taking Interpreting Sign Language jobs?

No not a chance.
MayPat (Low)
02 Jul 2024 19:49
I don't think AI would be able to translate or interpret flawlessly. AI is just stored info which is being displayed. It can't understand phrases or casual slangs unless they are encoded in it. A human could do it naturally as they have had an experience of it. AI is just a ' just in case' and still it is not even close to being accurate. A few languages can only be spoken, amd I don't think such languages could be added into a machine. It's hereditary sometimes and you just pick up a language. Language is just a ton of practice. AI might be able to translate but I think I would still prefer a human cause they know what they are saying unlike machines which just try to use what they have been fed with. More the natural and casual more understandable.

Ps : Google translate is still funny, I tried translating 1 sentence into like almost all languages and the sentence was not even close to what I had originally typed. I don't think it's gonna get better
Milan (Highly likely)
26 Apr 2024 02:01
Machine translation has existed for a few years and neural networks and AI will take it to the next level. As an example, Google Translate does poor with context and slang. ChatGPT on the other hand, was never intentionally taught to translate, but I found it does far better on understanding modern slang and making sure the sentences it generate actually make sense. With interpretation, the biggest difficulty for humans is short-term memory. AI does not have this issue.
A (Low)
01 Jul 2024 21:12
People want people, not machines. People feel culturally and socially comfortable with those who share their language, and that'll never happen with a robot.
Paula (Highly likely)
09 May 2023 19:31
I didn't think so in 2019 or even 2021. But now, May 2023, with Chat GPT4 and the moratorium on AI R&D I'm not so sure. There will still be post-editing, I think, but I do believe the profession is under threat.
Vovin (Highly likely)
21 Apr 2023 13:51
I give it 5-10 years before machine translation is the new normal, it's already happening and will simply be cheaper and faster (not to mention that some clients don't seem to care that much about nuanced, very polished texts). The current translators will be reduced to proofreaders/post-MT editors, for the most part.
Sinus46 (Moderate)
24 Aug 2025 13:02
Even though the output text has to be checked by a human in the end, the bulk of the work can be done by AI, thus the demand for translators will be greatly reduced.
Katie (Moderate)
05 Sep 2024 00:05
Because even if a robot can translate one language to the other, there still needs to be a human moderator to make sure everything is correct, or culturally sensitive.
Beatriz
26 Nov 2024 21:39
I agree with you. I hope we are right about it and A.I. don't replace us.
Noskaj (No chance)
18 Apr 2024 04:41
Ai won’t be able to translate context in some languages and it will over complicate words a native would never say
Carlos Fiuza (Highly likely)
02 Jul 2023 11:58
Note that translation (converting a written text from one language to another) and interpretation (converting a live speech from one language to another) are different activities.

Both are likely to be automated in the near future, since there are no constraints in this realm that cannot be overcome by AI, sooner or later.

Nevertheless, automation will probably come much sooner to translation (as a matter of fact, to a great extent it already has) than to interpretation.
Amelia
13 Jan 2025 07:45
It has been claimed that AI will fully automate translation in the near future for around 80 years. Translation has decades more of AI research than most other use cases and billions of dollars more worth of investment. And AI still isn't close to overcoming those constraints. In the meantime we have seen many jobs come close to being replaced within months of the public rise of LLMs, with a fraction of the investment.

Your claim that "there are no constraints in this realm that cannot be overcome by AI" is extremely bold because all the evidence points to the opposite. Time and time again it has failed to overcome the barriers to replacing translators even with investment several magnitudes higher in time and money than has been thrown at other industries where AI already has overcome most barriers.

This should be fairly obvious, given AI remains completely unable to understand language.
Cheesd Pepperoni (Moderate)
24 May 2023 07:50
translators already exist, and with the rapid advance of AI that we're seeing even today, i think that translators will be almost completely phased out except for a couple sensitive applications here and there
Thomas (Low)
22 May 2023 21:04
Translators will be replaced by machines only if we accept to adopt a very narrow view of language as a code used to clearly communicate a message. Language is nothing like that. Unfortunately, dumb capitalist companies and boffins are convinced that language is similar to coding
Edith (Highly likely)
07 Apr 2023 19:26
20 years from now, only the most creative and sensitive translation work (max. 1%) will still be done by people. I expect that 80% of the work will already be done by ChatGPT and the likes in 2025 (especially when taking e.g. 2015 as a reference point, as nowadays already a lot of translations are either done completely by DeepL or Google Translate or post-edited to make them fit for purpose).
Nadia (No chance)
22 Jun 2022 15:20
As an ASL interpreter, there really is no way AI would be able to automate what we do. If you know, you know.
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