On March 9, 2016, when AlphaGo beat Lee Sedol, the best Go knight, with 4 wins and 1 loss, there were depressing predictions that AI might soon take the place of humans in many fields. And one of the fields where such a sense of crisis came the most was translation.
In the meantime, no matter how advanced machine translators are, the prospect that it will be difficult to keep up with people is “Can machine translators also translate like humans?” It was a moment that changed to that expectation. At the same time, in the translation industry, “So isn't there no need for translation companies and translators in the future?” A real sense of concern and anxiety began to spread.
And now, four years later, the outlook 'Half right and half wrong answer'I think I can evaluate it.
Half the right answer, the translation market with specifications
Is it the same as Google Translate?
I think it should be called a “translation market with specifications,” or to be precise, a “human-centered translation market” with specifications. One of the client's common complaints about the translation company (translator) that entrusted the translation was, “I translated it just like Google. Didn't you care too much?” That's it. There are two types of causes for these complaints. First, there may be cases where the translator translated it themselves and was misunderstood because it happened to be similar to Google Translator; second, there may be cases where the translator actually referred to Google Translate for translation.
However, even if the apparent phenomenon looks different, it can be interpreted that in both cases, the results of Google Translate were close to those of translators, or developed to the point where professional translators were also referred to. I think this is a natural phenomenon as the performance and quality of Google translators have improved today.
Of course, sometimes it may be an unfortunate case where the translator was turned back to translate in order to meet the tight delivery schedule, and it was delivered immediately without inspection.
Translation companies replacing machine translation?
Machine translators such as Google Translate are solving the frustration of many people with foreign languages. Thanks to this, “Isn't it easy for anyone to use a foreign language without having to study it separately soon?” I was able to imagine that.
In fact, IT dinosaurs such as Naver and Kakao are investing heavily in boosting the original technology of machine translation in Japan, and as a result, they have shown better results than Google translators in specific languages or restricted environments. Also, machine translation, which can obtain the desired level of translation results in real time, is replacing translation companies that have to bear extra costs and hassle, even for consumers who need translation.
A translation company replacing bilingual (bilingual)?
Although not all international students are bilingual (bilingual users), nearly 200,000 students study abroad every year. Also, many of them do “translation alba,” which is a basic practice for international students.
Meanwhile, the number of foreign students coming to the country to study has reached an all-time high. As of last year (2019), approximately 160,000 international students are studying in Korea, and they have become good partners (resources) for domestic translation companies.
Statistics on Korean students in foreign higher education institutionsStatistics on international students in higher education institutions in Korea* Source: http://www.edujin.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=32030
A growing pool of translators with excellent foreign language skills will certainly help improve the competitiveness of translation companies. However, since this phenomenon is also affecting the growth of freelance direct trading platforms (such as Kumon, Hidden, etc.), it's actually not just a good thing for translation companies.
Furthermore, the freelance platform stores the entire process of starting and delivering translation transactions as data. Based on this, artificial intelligence, which has learned vast amounts of data, including the reputation of freelancers, recommends translators more suitable for the job and has received good reviews from customers.
This post will continue next week with “Growing Specification Industry (Shayang Industry), Translation Market (2).”
*This content has been transferred from Gicon Studio to Letterworks.
