With artificial intelligence the work of interpreters at risk

Artificial intelligence has entered the world of language translation and has also changed the work of linguists, mediators and interpreters, who from operators become guarantors of interlingual and intercultural communication. In this panorama, the positive aspects go hand in hand with a few critical elements that 'still need to be governed'.

"The advent of artificial intelligence has helped SMEs to open the door to foreign markets and customers, albeit with reduced economic investment,' says Ottavio Ricci, vice president of Unilingue, the national association of translation centres. With machine translation systems, companies manage, for example, to promote their websites and communication with social media in multiple languages directly and quickly, not limiting themselves to English as the vehicular language'.

While on the one hand there is a breaking down of distances and an easing of communication, on the other hand there is no shortage of complexities. Because, by relying solely on automated systems, the human aspect and that linguistic mediation that professional 'interpreters, mediators, linguists' can guarantee is missing. Ottavio Ricci, who is also the owner of the Tyche translation centre in Pescara and director of the Ecampus Cla and the Columbus Academy school for language mediators in Rome, highlights another aspect, which is far from irrelevant. "Artificial intelligence pushed in this way does not take into account the aspect of data protection. All of us using machine translation systems expose our data to external access by third parties, and we often forget this,' he adds. Machine translation is not in any way guaranteed, which is what language professionals, linguistic experts, do. They often use translation as a by-product as translated texts also have a very short cyclic life in corporate communication'.

All at the expense of quality and contextualisation of content, with repercussions also for the world of professionals. This is a transformation that needs to be remedied, the lecturer argues, by enhancing those figures who are able to contextualise the content in the texts that are automatically translated. "For this reason, we believe it is our duty to safeguard and enhance the figure of the linguist, (interpreter, translator, linguistic mediator) who, in this context and in this phase of great change, assumes the role of consultant guarantor for international communication. Because with his skills he is able to adapt and contextualise what each company intends to communicate'. Then there is another aspect, and it concerns the changes in the work of the translator, linguistic mediator, who has gone from being an 'operator to a guarantor of interlinguistic and intercultural communication'.