Another Glimpse into the Future

Technology will have a huge impact on the translation profession. I believe that practical and reliable desktop machine translation systems would arrive within ten years, greatly impacting on translators and their profession. Whether or not this happens by 2010 remains to be seen.

One, of more immediate interest to translators is the impact and significance of machine-assisted translation systems. Technology which keeps track of terminology, neologisms, and specialized vocabularies is just around the corner, at hand. Reliable dictation software is here, though still not reliable enough. Translation management software has arrived. All these products, plus others will make a translator more productive, but will also require translators to learn more and invest more.

Two, many computational linguists and MT software researchers and developers consider viable machine translation systems to be at least 20 years in the future. Some consider it essentially impossible with today’s technology. They are not referring to the speed or storage capacity of current systems, but to the digital and Boolean nature of 1990’s computing. They believe that analogue neural-based technology which companies like Intel are just starting to develop will be essential to creating any viable MT system. Few such experts are optimistic about the next ten years, saying that the current technological barriers and knowledge makes a reliable MT system impossible.

So, the future of the translator is uncertain. Whether the profession is suddenly wiped into oblivion by computers in 20 years or becomes more and more automated over the coming decade remains to be seen. The translation profession is constantly changing in so many ways that dwelling on an uncertain future some 10 or 20 years away is not terribly productive.