Tag: translation

More AI Snake Oil

In a recent BBC report of an interview with Google (Alphabet) boss Sundar Pichai, we see Pichai repeating the nonsense spewed by numerous AI tech bros in attempts to allay fears of AI disruption.

Pichai says that AI will also affect work as we know it, calling it “the most profound technology” humankind had worked on. Well, perhaps that part of his comments is correct.

“We will have to work through societal disruptions,” he said, adding that it would also “create new opportunities”.

One person’s manageable disruption is another’s total disastrous loss of earning power.

There are people who have been successful in a number of specific careers who will not be offered or be able to take those “new opportunities.” Many are already being deprived of work and income, by being replaced by AI. Opportunities will be provided to others, perhaps, but certain careers will simply disappear; translation is one of them. Change is coming much too fast for some groups to keep up. The notion that translation will continue as a career is clearly delusional.

“It will evolve and transition certain jobs, and people will need to adapt,” he said. Those who do adapt to AI “will do better”.

Transition? Adapt? What do translators transition to and how do they adapt? By accepting post-editing work at one-fifth the word rate (and certainly not anywhere near a compensating five-fold increase in throughput)? And that doesn’t even address the issue of mind-numbing post-editing work. Most translators will not be able to survive by adapting to AI or even adopting AI themselves, because they have been habitualized by their clients to working only for a client demographic one tier above them on the food chain, and that client demographic is currently using AI to replace them. Freelancers have arguably allowed themselves to be isolated from translation consumers that have not yet adopted AI. AI will be of no avail without clients that are not using AI, and that includes acting as the “human in the loop,” the snake oil sold by the major translation brokers that control most of the translation market.

“It doesn’t matter whether you want to be a teacher [or] a doctor. All those professions will be around, but the people who will do well in each of those professions are people who learn how to use these tools.”

This could very well be true for some professions. As noted above, however, freelance translating is not one of them, as is already being demonstrated to be the case, with large numbers of translators trapped into non-translation functions that pay extremely poorly, if they even have that left as their clients replace them with AI.

The outlook is bleak. More and more translators are coming to realize that, but numerous translation organizations appear to hang onto the delusion that this storm can be ridden out; it cannot. When it passes, it will leave a barren wasteland in its path, with very few translators left standing.

Expanded Thoughts on My “LinkedIn Experience”

Executive Summary:  For any freelancer (and not limited to translators) not totally locked into sitting in front of their computer and hoping work arrives, LinkedIn is as useless as tits on a bull. In fact, even (and perhaps particularly) if you are locked into that strategy, LinkedIn is pretty much useless.

Some uselessness of LinkedIn not directly attributable to Microsoft:

  • Usage of LinkedIn by Japanese individuals and entities is tiny compared to the anglophone world, hence the small number of JA-EN translators I encountered there. One of the reasons I rejoined LinkedIn was because of the lack of online venues with active interaction between Japanese/English translators. LinkedIn did not fill that need.
  • Almost all of the hundreds of connection requests I received (and almost universally ignored) were from people in the Global South, some of them involved in activities not easily discernible from their profiles, but many being translators. Surely, they saw my profile and company name and erroneously thought I had translation work to give them; I do not.

Uselessness of LinkedIn directly attributable to Microsoft and its business model:

  • Countless ads for AI systems.
  • Countless ads for jobs training AI systems by annotating data.
  • Many ads for training you to achieve “AI success” by learning how to prompt AI.
  • Incessant promotion by Microsoft itself of AI and AI promoters.
  • Phoniness and bluster are everywhere and rewarded by Microsoft with reach that leads to engagement. These are characteristically from people claiming to be the best things since sliced bread and also fighting against tremendous odds and never losing. I feel some of these people have serious self-confidence problems, but I digress.
  • AI-generated posts clearly uploaded to farm engagement and often about topics totally unrelated to anything the poster’s profile might indicate that they do when they are not posting AI slop.

Uselessness of LinkedIn attributable to general users:

  • A large portion of users present themselves as consultants, coaches, and trainers.
  • Countless formulaic posts, many starting with the overworked expression of thrill, excitement, or honor about just about anything and everything. They often end with silliness such as “Hi, I’m Danny Deluder, and if you need…”
  • An increasing number of posts that include images stolen and unlawfully republished, probably by people who will conveniently tell you that the image was on the Internet, so it was “public domain.” These people should be beaten about the head and shoulders with a heavy shovel, but I digress.
  • Account owners who reply to every comment to a post they make using AI, easily discoverable from not only the vapid text, but also the lengths of the responses, the dispersion of which often no more than one or two words. It’s as if they told an AI to reply in N words.
  • Incessant posts from “LinkedIn coaches,” purporting to coach you in achieving “LinkedIn success.”
  • Countless posts by people self-identifying as

Uselessness and annoyance of LinkedIn attributable to translator users:

  • Many desperate and delusional translators chanting the “culture mantra,” which claims that, because translation requires an understanding of cultural nuances, humans will not be replaced by AI. These people apparently don’t know or want to know that most translation that is purchased is not affected by culture. Bless their hearts, but I have given up on trying to educate these people.
  • Ads by translators working the aisles of desperate translators and looking to take money from them for coaching.

Annoyance of a specific group related to business in Japan:

  • There is a Japan business group that has a few members who know about Japan and make sensible comments based on the real world, but almost all of the many thousands of members (over 15,000 if I remember correctly) are silent, and the group appears to be generally populated by non-Japanese looking to do business in Japan or, in many cases, just get a cover story to be able to come and live in Japan.
  • Because of the above demographic, there are Japanese members of the group selling services to foreigners trying to acquire visas or residence status in Japan.
  • Again, because of the above demographic, there are complaints that Japan is not fair to foreigners, including some comments about the unfairness of requiring proficiency in Japanese to gain employment. I will write about that particular silly entitlement at another time.

For translators specifically, I can say that, with translation quickly winding down as a realistic activity for most freelancers, the type of clients the few survivable translators will need to acquire are not going to be acquired by having a LinkedIn account or posting there. Many more—and much different—things are going to be required.