We often get asked or sometimes it comes as a direct comment by those in and out of the language industry about whether or not AI is going to replace Barbier human linguists. And my answer remains an absolute no. Even though the language services world continues to see amazing technology tools that assist our work, I have yet to see a tool that can replace us. All industries have innovation, and all industries adapt to the changes. What I think spawns this fear is what has taken place with the use of robots in the automotive sector. These robots are heavily worked in the manufacturing process. According to the St. Louis Fed and Science Daily, in the U.S., the auto industry employs about 136 robots per 1,000 workers, significantly outpacing other manufacturing sectors. For comparison, the rest of U.S. manufacturing only uses about 8.6 robots per 1,000 workers. As a result, this trend has reshaped the labor market, particularly affecting middle-skilled and low-skilled workers in the automotive industry. But most respectfully this is not the work that linguists do.
The linguistic expertise, cultural knowledge, and technical skills of a professional translator is comparable to other professional fields such as law, medicine or engineering. I do not see anyone running scared that the next time they need legal assistance, they will see a robot representing them. And with this, I make my argument that although innovation is taking center stage right now, the technology that exists and continues to evolve will guide but also hinder a creative process like transcreation. The language industry is on the cusp of a transformation, but at what cost?
So, what is Transcreation? Transcreation is different and much more involved than a regular translation. The translator must adapt content to not only convey the original meaning, known as the source text, but also to express it with the cultural and emotional context of the target audience. Think of transcreation as the skill of taking a message and then making it resonate with different cultures to create an evocative response. And when translators complete this process, they must labor over whether the humor, irony, slang or other context will be understood. At Barbier, we often see this when we are translating literature, advertisements, scripts, songs that even the current version of AI cannot create anything other than a literal translation.
To demonstrate this point, here is what happened when we asked Chap GPT to translate Johnny Cash’s song lyrics to Ring Of Fire:
I can’t provide a full translation of Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire,” but I can offer a brief translated snippet and an analysis of the song’s meaning. Snippet in Spanish: “Me caí en un ardiente anillo de fuego, me caí, caí, caí, y las llamas más altas subieron.” Song Meaning: “Ring of Fire” is a song about intense, passionate love and the emotional pain it can sometimes cause. The “fire” represents both the burning passion and the potential danger of falling in love. In Spanish, this concept can be rendered similarly, as fire and passion are closely associated in many cultures. For the full translation of the song, you may want to look up a licensed translation or check out the original version.
Even the best tool out there knows that it cannot just create a literal translation. But more importantly AI did not know that the song was written by Johnny’s wife, June Carter Cash who compared Johnny’s struggle with drugs to that being in a ring of fire.
Another factor to consider is will technology hurt human creativity. Becoming over-reliant on AI in translation could diminish a translator’s creativity. Some of the best marketing ideas come from human errors, misunderstandings, and improvisations, which lead to breakthrough ideas. Machines are programmed to avoid mistakes, but it is often these very mistakes that spark creative solutions. For example, Twitter didn’t initially plan on using hashtags (#) for organizing conversations. The concept was suggested by a user, Chris Messina, in 2007, and it was later adopted by Twitter as a key feature to help group topics. Like seen in Barbier’s social media posts, hashtags are now a global social media marketing staple. Perhaps AI would have created something similar, but human innovation can often come from the simplest suggestions.
So, how does Barbier preserve the human element in a tech driven world? We understand the vital role our team of human translators and transcreators play in the process of Transcreation. Their cultural expertise, emotional intelligence and the ability to think creatively cannot yet, and in my opinion ever be replicated by even the most advanced AI. And as our Translation Department Manager, Sofia Arango, points out in our blog “Translators Have Souls, AI Not So Much”, she states behind each text, as small or big as it might be, there’s a myriad of factors—cultural, stylistic, technical, etc.—that will always require a human touch.
Will the synergy between human and machine ever exist in the translation sector? Sure, but not how people imagine. And to be clear, it already does. Professional translation companies like Barbier use technology to aid a translation project with tools such as websites, email, IT protection, interpreting platforms, note taking tools, project management platforms, content drives, translation memory tools, quality assurance tools and accounting software. But the transcreation process cannot be absent of the human touch, any more than the tools just listed cannot function without Barbier team members monitoring, populating and using them. Barbier understands this and has found a synergy where technology assists, but our human team will always be in control of the creative process and the analysis of any other innovations that come our way. We understand that transcreation will continue to thrive though balancing the implementation of technology within the translation sector. After all, would a robot let you sign off on a blog with the line, “it ain’t rocket science!”
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