Translators tipped to be replaced by AI within three years

Machine translation – including live, voice-to-voice language conversion – is advancing rapidly, although interpreting meaning rather than just words and sentences remains a daunting task.

Machine translation is advancing fast enough that some think human translators will soon struggle for work. iStock

The Economist

Updated Dec 26, 2024 – 10.59am, first published at Dec 25, 2024 – 6.00pm

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Vasco Pedro had always believed that, despite the rise of artificial intelligence, getting machines to translate languages as well as professional translators do would always need a human in the loop.

Then he saw the results of a competition run by his Lisbon-based start-up, Unbabel, pitting its latest AI model against the company’s human translators.

The Economist