The ITI in the UK just posted on LinkedIn a link to a report of a webinar participated in by translation academics and industry leaders, purporting to answer the question of “Is translation still a worthwhile profession to enter in the age of AI?”
The ITI response to the challenge presented by translation consumers bypassing professionals in favor of AI is to emphasize the hallmarks of professionalism, as exemplified by (quoted verbatim from the ITI report):
- holding specialist knowledge
- holding recognised credentials
- adhering to a code of professional conduct
- keeping skills up to date
- exercising independent judgement
- placing client and public interest first
- taking responsibility for their work
These are all laudable tenets, but stating them does not provide an answer to the question of whether translation is still a worthwhile profession to enter.
The problem faced by almost all translators, and particularly by freelancers, is that even adhering to all of the above is totally insufficient to survive. The above list makes it look like these are the keys to survival. That is totally uninformed by the real world.
This approach speaks of an attitude that is held not just by the ITI but by other translation organizations as well, including Japan Association of Translators here in Japan.
Little or no attention is given to—and they arguably actively avoid—the real-world situation in which translation is not an academic or lofty professional activity, but rather a business. Freelance translators in particular, since they are almost all dependent upon translation-brokering agencies and must operate in a two-tier food chain, will find that the above tenets are totally inadequate, since they must also move away from agencies, which have historically proven and continue to demonstrate that they are moving away from human professionals.
Acquiring direct clients is a survival strategy, but is something that translation organizations appear to want to play down or totally ignore, perhaps because they correctly realize that such a strategy is out of reach for all but a small portion of their members.
That said, I strongly believe organizations should stop pretending that all you need to do is “be professional,” and start counseling members on more realistic strategies. Those strategies do not include continuing to believe that the future lies in working for translation agencies. That business model is nearing its end.