Interpreters and Translators

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.

User poll

Sentiment

The following graph is included wherever there is a substantial amount of votes to render meaningful data. These visual representations display user poll results over time, providing a significant indication of sentiment trends.

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

Comments

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Aurelie Delaporte (Highly likely) 4 months ago

I was a translator, but I was replaced by Google Translate.

0 0 Reply

H. (Low) 4 months ago

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.

2 1 Reply

Irene (Low) 7 months ago

It depends on what you translate. If technical documents, sure, it will be automated. But if you translate fiction or poetry, it requires creativity.

7 2 Reply

Alejandro (Low) 7 months ago

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,

3 2 Reply

Jason 8 months ago

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.

2 0 Reply

Kayla (Highly likely) 10 months ago

We've got ai that can speak different languages. Surely translating them isn't far off

1 1 Reply

Katie (Moderate) 10 months ago

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.

2 1 Reply

Beatriz 8 months ago

I agree with you. I hope we are right about it and A.I. don't replace us.

4 0 Reply

MayPat (Low) 1 year ago

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

4 1 Reply

Constantin (Moderate) 1 year ago

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

4 0 Reply

A (Low) 1 year ago

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.

2 0 Reply

Ashwin Naik 1 year ago

Working with my marketing and sales team on a huge project, we needed to translate a ton of images and content into multiple languages. That's when we found Translate.photo. This tool has been a game-changer for us, allowing us to translate creatives into 75+ languages with just one click on Photoshop, Illustrator, Figma, and Canva. What used to take days now only takes a few hours, making our workflow incredibly efficient. Plus, it’s been a lifesaver for creating content for my ecommerce and dropshipping businesses. If you need to go global effortlessly, definitely check out Translate.photo!

1 1 Reply

Amelia 6 months ago

LMAO, and you'll get decades worth of expenses for a small business once someone from those 75+ languages full of translation errors takes your business to court. AI can only translate decently a handful of languages and still won't be error-free. Most of the output you're presenting to your clients is complete garbage.

1 0 Reply

Milan (Highly likely) 1 year ago

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.

3 0 Reply

Noskaj (No chance) 1 year ago

Ai won’t be able to translate context in some languages and it will over complicate words a native would never say

1 1 Reply

D (Highly likely) 1 year ago

an interpreters job requires you to have incredibly good short term memory and a large vocabulary that you can access instantly. A human will always show flaws in these regards, when compared to a machine. This in turn leads to a good probability of miscommunication. In my opinion, human interpreters will only be neccessary in high end communication, and yet still it might be better for them to be correcting the work of a computer, than interpreting themselves. The only things that save this job are government requirements for some administrative proccesses, the need to demonstrate wealth in some cases and the cultural differences, that an interpreter can notice in live conversations.

1 0 Reply

Johanna Ellsworth 1 year ago

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...

5 0 Reply

Remigiusz (Moderate) 1 year ago

While computer translators are getting better and better they are still far from perfect. They made simple mistakes, often translating too literally. That's why I believe that there will be place for a human overseer, at least for now.

0 0 Reply

Ildiko (Moderate) 1 year ago

Machine translation develops amazingly fast and well. Mostly based on the already translated texts. I welcome that when using machine translation, I don't have to type the words, the software does it for me.

However, we humans are still needed to correct the sometimes amazingly stupid solutions the machine offers when the text is completely new and there are no precedents. Anyway, I would not advise my daughter to choose this profession, except when she likes text editing...

0 0 Reply

Kareem (Low) 1 year ago

Context, culture and words that have multiple different meanings will be hard to understand for AI. The hardest languages will be unlikely to get replaced by AI

0 0 Reply

Daniel Valdes (Low) 1 year ago

I have been a medical interpreter for some time now and I really don't see our job being replaced soon. Just in one language there are dozens of different dialects and registers which can include a lot of different words to refer to the same thing. You have to read the context around the conversation to make sense of all of the senseless things the low English proficient client says sometimes.

Also interpreters and translators are two very different jobs with different automation risks, I don't think they should be together in one category.

0 0 Reply

Carlos Fiuza (Highly likely) 2 years ago

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.

1 0 Reply

Amelia 6 months ago

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.

0 1 Reply