In the age of automation, robots and artificial intelligence, it’s worth asking whether you need to call on the services of a translation agency to translate your conferences, meetings or technical documents, as machine translation applications multiply. But while they can be very useful for ordering in a restaurant when traveling abroad, are they sufficiently effective in a professional context?
The improvement of online translation tools
In recent years, online translation tools have made giant leaps and bounds forward in terms of oral and written comprehension and reproduction. This progress is due to the process of continuous learning that AI undergoes, which means it now produces far better results than when it was first developed. But if you want to maintain your credibility in front of your international clients, for example during meetings, humans are still your best bet.
Artificial intelligence in online translation tools
AI is becoming increasingly powerful. Online translation tools can translate several hundreds of words in a matter of seconds. But is the quality always up to scratch?
Many of us look upon our everyday tools with a half-admiring, half-distrustful eye when we see what they can do today. So much so, in fact, that we wonder whether this intelligence will still have something artificial about it in the near future, given its meteoric evolution. Although several professions are threatened by the progress of artificial intelligence, let’s not forget that it feeds on the data we provide it with. It has no feelings, no hindsight, no cultural baggage. Today, it is still essential for humans to proofread translations produced by these tools.
The importance of choosing a translation agency
Despite this, technological advances are a godsend that you need to take advantage of. Alltradis has developed its own simultaneous translation solution for meetings and conferences. But behind this tool, it’s still human beings who listen, analyze and render your words in the chosen language.
Translation cannot be limited to automatic rendering by a machine; the range of skills required is far too vast! The context and specificities of your profession, not to mention the vagaries of live speaking, are beyond the capabilities of AI. If you try to get an application to translate an entire meeting, at best you’ll get a word-for-word translation, at worst a series of misunderstandings, misinterpretations and even contradictions.
Human interpreting
Interpreting is an extremely demanding profession, requiring rigorous training. Technical subject matter is prepared in advance of a meeting, and requires highly specialized, non-fungible knowledge. What’s more, the human support you receive when you call on a translation agency, in the form of attentiveness and confidentiality, is a major asset for your company.