Interpreters and Translators

AUTOMATION RISK
CALCULATED
67%
risk level
POLLING
57%
Based on 1,752 votes
LABOR DEMAND
GROWTH
20.2%
by year 2032
WAGES
$53,640
or $25.79 per hour
Volume
52,160
as of 2022
SUMMARY
JOB SCORE
4.7/10

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Automation risk

67% (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

57% chance of full automation within the next two decades

Our visitors have voted they are unsure if this occupation will be automated. However, the automation risk level we have generated suggests a much higher chance of automation: 67% 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(s) are 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.

Sentiment over time (quarterly)

Sentiment over time (yearly)

Growth

Very fast growth relative to other professions

The number of 'Interpreters and Translators' job openings is expected to rise 20.2% by 2032

Total employment, and estimated job openings

* Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for the period between 2021 and 2031
Updated projections are due 09-2023.

Wages

Moderately paid relative to other professions

In 2022, the median annual wage for 'Interpreters and Translators' was $53,640, or $25 per hour

'Interpreters and Translators' were paid 15.8% higher than the national median wage, which stood at $46,310

Wages over time

* Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics

Volume

Moderate range of job opportunities compared to other professions

As of 2022 there were 52,160 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

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Comments

Leave a comment

Remigiusz (Moderate) says
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.
Dec 11, 2023 at 10:08 PM
Ildiko (Moderate) says
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...
Oct 27, 2023 at 08:01 AM
Kareem (Low) says
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
Jul 28, 2023 at 10:55 AM
Daniel Valdes (Low) says
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.
Jul 27, 2023 at 01:53 PM
Carlos Fiuza (Highly likely) says
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.
Jul 02, 2023 at 11:58 AM
Jalves (Low) says
A really good translation cannot be mimicked by AI simply because AI can't distinguish social cues necessary to humor.
Jun 15, 2023 at 05:36 PM
Cheesd Pepperoni (Moderate) says
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
May 24, 2023 at 07:50 AM
Thomas (Low) says
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
May 22, 2023 at 09:04 PM
Paula (Highly likely) says
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.
May 09, 2023 at 07:31 PM
Vovin (Highly likely) says
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.
Apr 21, 2023 at 01:51 PM
Edith (Highly likely) says
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).
Apr 07, 2023 at 07:26 PM
Edith says
Yes, and it will happen quickly in most text types and specialities (except for literature, slogans etc.). In 2010, I still translated the subject line of a Finnish government letter word by word using my dictionary before calling our Finnish distributor to get more information. In 2015, Google Translate was already able to give quite a good idea what such a letter was about. In 2020, Google Translate NT and DeepL still have funny mistakes but usually make even texts in small languages easily understandable. And now Chat GPT had arrived; within a few months already as good as DeepL, and I don't doubt it will be as good as 80% of the human translators within a few years. That's good enough for most companies that need translations, so the human translation market will collapse.
Apr 07, 2023 at 07:20 PM
Anna (Moderate) says
If we're talking about 20 years perspective I believe almost all of the jobs will become automated by that point
Jan 18, 2023 at 06:54 PM
Karume (Low) says
Language interpretation requires a lot of skills, not just word-to-word interpretation. Unless robots or AI can fully comprehend human culture, reason completely, and provide ideas, this will remain a science-fiction story.

It's like suggesting that adult robots or AI will fully replace human sexuality - something that verges on the impossible.
Jan 06, 2023 at 02:41 PM
Anonymous says
Some men prefer that e.g. my ex
Mar 03, 2024 at 04:49 AM
Emilio (Moderate) says
Maybe certified translators will survive longer.
Dec 01, 2022 at 08:54 AM
Richard (Moderate) says
Every language is able to express the same ideas and concepts more or less, so it’s only a matter of time until AI figures out the patterns. However, this may take a while because communication is very complex.
Nov 30, 2022 at 06:06 AM
Félix (Low) says
Interpreting is more than the transfer of languages -- it's about human communication. It's cool to have interpreters around, and interpreters' bodies matter in the room.
The story is different for translators.
Also, the salary is incredibly off even today. It's probably double to three times what the website says :)
Jul 31, 2022 at 09:00 PM
Diego (Moderate) says
It's quite likely that we'll be able to speak several languages through devices or apps. These are capable of making real-time translations with the same accuracy as a professional.
Jul 03, 2022 at 04:01 AM
Nadia (No chance) says
As an ASL interpreter, there really is no way AI would be able to automate what we do. If you know, you know.
Jun 22, 2022 at 03:20 PM
Jacob (Highly likely) says
Seeing the progress of neural networks and AI in general in the past years makes me believe that a program replacing this job may eventually occur. Many big companies would invest in it to lower the costs of translation and make it faster.
Jun 13, 2022 at 04:45 PM

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