#AI#GenerativeAI#Translations#Literature: "Unreadable translations of pirated books flooding the internet show that the process cannot currently be fully outsourced to computers. Instead, publishers have begun to use AI-assisted translation. Some European presses work with Nuanxed, which employs humans to edit machine-translated books. The company aims “to maintain the quality of traditional translations”, offering savings to publishers and “market rates” to linguists.
The threat of being undercut by machines is an ongoing concern for translators. In its recent survey, the European Council of Literary Translators’ Associations recommends that professionals avoid editing AI-generated texts or charge translation rates for such work. In our age of jet-propelled information, translating by hand could become the new green travel; the appeal of sustainably translated books would then grow, hopefully benefiting their creators.
When asked about quality, even some of the proponents of AI believe it may be good enough for a potboiler but not for a poetry collection. Kristoffer Lind, the CEO of the Swedish publisher Lind & Co, told me that his company only uses machine translation for genres such as crime and romance. While the suitability of AI is often debated in economic terms, for Eva Ferri, the publisher of Europa Editions UK and the Italian press Edizioni E/O, the choice is ethical. “Hiring a human being is the right thing to do,” she says, “even when the alternative is much more cost-efficient.”" https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/mar/15/ai-translation-literature
Add comment