A small but gradually increasing number of translators are engaging in the business of selling webinars and other forms of coaching and advice to fellow translators.
Do these webinars address the actual causes of freelance translators being replaced by AI and facing an existential crisis? I seriously doubt it, because to do so would deflate the overinflated hopes that AI won’t destroy freelance translation, thereby discouraging participants (paying customers). More specifically, the underlying causes of the demise of freelance translation as a career include one not discussed much.
Freelance translators are not on their way out because they don’t use AI as promoted by the AI “toolists” who posit that AI is just a tool, so let’s use it.
Freelance translators are not on their way out if they don’t have a degree in language or translation.
And freelance translators certainly are not on their way out because they haven’t paid to hear the secret to survival from a webinar seller.
Rather, they are on their way out largely because of the brokered structure that has characterized the translation business for decades.
The best (although certainly not assured) path to survival at this point is to acquire clients not yet using AI. Most agencies are clearly and rapidly adopting AI and moving away from purchasing translations from freelancers. At this point, for freelancers that means moving to direct clients.
The brokered structure of the translation business, however, has fostered a population of remote-working—and often click-work—freelancers who are almost all incapable of doing that. Denial of the demise and delusion about defeating the AI transformation of the translation business are the defensive responses from some troubled freelancers, who probably secretly realize they cannot surmount the hurdles and don’t have the table stakes to survive.
Desperate translators are grasping at various straws and chanting vacuous mantras about AI not replacing them, clients returning to humans, and some other things that will not be happening.
When a vacuous mantra chanter chants in a post in places like LinkedIn, freelancers thank them profusely for their empathy and support. Their wounds are licked, but there is no critical thinking involved. Just believe the mantra and sign up for a webinar to learn the secret to survival.
To learn more, please sign up to my new webinar. The date is TBD, but it will certainly be just after pigs start submitting flight plans.
