“ But why do you want to train in translation? With machine translation and now ChatGPT, you will never find a job…” This is a comment that many of our students hear, often from their parents. Alarmist messages about the planned obsolescence of the translation profession are proliferating everywhere in the press and on social media. We feel it is essential to respond to them, without falling into denial of reality or claiming to have all the answers. Recalling a series of facts, far from the predictions of a thousand years ago: artificial intelligence (AI) is neither the new representative of Satan on earth nor the solution to all the problems facing humanity today.
The profession of translator encompasses a large number of professions, which have evolved profoundly over the last thirty years. Far from being limited to the literary and cultural aspect, which is the most visible, translation has moved from a primarily artisanal vision to a professional vision aimed at providing a service to society and its various stakeholders (companies, public services, citizens, litigants, etc.). Depending on the chosen field, there are between 20,000 and 50,000 professionals in France, who constitute an essential, if discrete, cog in the functioning of today’s economy and society. Can they ignore technological advances? Only at their own risk.
There is already some perspective on machine translation.
Simply condemning the use of AI will in no way prevent its spread. We believe that our role as training managers is not to pass moral judgement on these developments or to dictate to our future graduates what they should become. What remains is to prepare our students to make informed decisions that will enable them to engage in a remunerative activity, while being recognised for their professional value.
This is why, at the training level, the French association that brings them together (AFFUMT, the French Association for University Training for Translation Professionals) and within the EMT network (European Masters in Translation) set out to understand what the emergence of AI means for our sector and to provide a thoughtful and constructive response. As we are part of a complex ecosystem, this reflection is carried out with other actors in the sector, because only together can we influence this evolution, which concerns us directly but which affects society more broadly.
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