Ask ChatGPT – June 13, 2023

My Conversations with ChatGPT
Machine Translation (MT) and translations generated by AI have brought about a paradigm shift in the translation industry. The output of MT will continue to improve, especially when associated with clients’ translation memories and human editing. Language Service Providers are adapting and are including MT in their processes, when MT is applicable. While linguists will continue to be essential in the process, their role will shift from that of translators to validators of content generated by MT. At Excel Translations, we wanted to know what AI thinks about all of this and decided to have an open conversation on the matter with ChatGPT. I will regularly publish a question and ChatGPT’s response, uncensored.

QUESTION 6:

What are risks of machine translation?

ChatGPT’s Response:

Machine translation comes with several risks that can impact the quality and accuracy of translations. Some of the key risks include:

1. Inaccuracy: Machine translation can produce inaccurate translations, especially when dealing with complex sentence structures, idiomatic expressions, and ambiguous language. It may misinterpret context and generate mistranslations that can lead to misunderstandings or misinformation.
2. Lack of Contextual Understanding: Machine translation lacks the ability to fully grasp the context of a text, leading to errors in translation. It may struggle with cultural references, humor, or specific domain knowledge, resulting in inaccurate or inappropriate translations.
3. Limited Language Support: Machine translation systems may have limitations in the languages they support. While popular languages may have better translation quality, less widely spoken or low-resource languages may have poorer translation results due to limited training data.
4. Security and Confidentiality: Machine translation requires data input, which may include sensitive or confidential information. If not properly handled, there is a risk of data breaches or unauthorized access to sensitive content during the translation process.
5. Lack of Human Judgment and Quality Control: Machine translation lacks the ability to exercise human judgment and reasoning. It cannot understand the intent or purpose behind a text, leading to potential errors or misinterpretations. Additionally, it may not identify or correct mistakes in the source text, resulting in inaccurate translations.
6. Legal and Compliance Issues: Certain industries, such as legal or medical fields, have specific legal and compliance requirements for translations. Relying solely on machine translation may lead to non-compliance with regulations or legal implications if inaccuracies occur.
7. Loss of Human Touch: Machine translation lacks the human touch, cultural sensitivity, and creativity that human translators bring to the table. It may produce technically accurate translations but fail to capture the tone, style, and emotional nuances of the original text.

While machine translation has its advantages and continues to improve, it is important to be aware of these risks and exercise caution when using machine-translated content, especially for critical or sensitive materials. Human involvement, such as post-editing or reviewing by professional translators, is often necessary to ensure high-quality and accurate translations.