When thinking of the future most people can reasonably say that AI will play a big part in it. As an ideal substitute for human labor, AI technology is simple to use, never gets tired, works faster, and is more cost-effective. In fact AI technology currently takes up 30 percent of the workforce, “however, by the year 2025, it’s believed that the balance will dramatically change to a 50-50 combination of humans and machines.”
This begs the question: Will AI intelligence eventually replace all human labor?
The answer to that is NO.
It’s true that AI is taking over certain fields in the job market such as supply chain management, marketing, and healthcare. Even so, there are certain jobs that AI intelligence is not capable of performing in an efficient and effective manner. An example of a job that AI would not be best suited for is Interpreting Services. This is not to say that AI interpreting services don’t exist, however, it’s not a matter of whether AI interpreting services are an option, but how they compare to human interpreting services. Despite the benefits of AI in so many areas, there are some drawbacks to these little robots when it comes to translating.
Identifying tone, language, and subtext
As robots are preprogrammed, artificial intelligence cannot comprehend what is not built into their code. This means AI interpreting services can’t detect or make sense of subtle distinctions found within the human language such as tone, sarcasm, and sentiment. In comparison humans have the mental capacity to think outside of the box, humans understand subtext, tone, and don’t have issues with deciphering their own emotions. The very reason human interpreting services are far superior to AI interpreting services is that the way humans communicate is extremely nuanced and when it comes to involving more than one language it is imperative to be able to think outside rigid programming to make sense of what is being said.
Robots are unthinking
As previously stated robots are pre-programmed, and because of this sometimes these little robots malfunction. Malfunctions include not being able to decipher complex vocabulary and industry-specific terms. To make matters worse, “the output is, at times, far from the original sense, and the translated content can be awkward or even offensive.”
As of now, there are no available foolproof solutions to these forms of malfunctions and misinterpretations.
Simultaneous Interpretation
It is true that AI interpreting services are capable of getting through a larger amount of words in a shorter period of time when compared to human interpreting services. Nevertheless, AI interpreting services do have the disadvantage when it comes to simultaneous interpretations, especially when in regards to live speeches. There are professional interpreters who are trained professionally and have to undergo comprehensive training and gain a lot of experience to be able to successfully complete simultaneous interpretation.
In other words, to program an AI interpreting service that can perform the same way a professionally trained interpreter can when talking about simultaneous interpretation is extremely far-fetched- as of now.
The Human Touch
Though it’s true that AI will grow and evolve, it is widely known that it will take a number of years, possibly decades for it to be able to differentiate between dialects the way a human can. AI is unlikely to rival a human translator in the translation and transcreation of emotive, impactful, and persuasive texts. AI is heavily reliant on humans and will continue to rely on human translation for a long time not just because of dialect but because “regardless of how powerful a certain program is, there’s no way for a robot to have cognitive thinking.”
Confidentiality and Data Privacy
Additionally, another issue with AI-based translation tools is confidentiality and data privacy. The free AI-based translation services are unlikely to adhere to the highest standards of data privacy and security. In order to offer anonymization services and robust data protection, companies will need to train their AI programs and thus increase the cost of programming.
For what it’s worth, no matter what AI has to offer, interpreting services is a field in the workplace that AI will not be able to carry out as well as a human. Humans will always do a better job of depicting emotions, idioms, or speech impairments and interpreting the “whole” of the communication.