AI programs take on human translators in South Korea
Event meant to highlight strengths and weaknesses and reassure interpretors that their jobs aren’t at risk
By Yoon Sung-won
Artificial intelligence (AI)-based programs and human professionals will engage in a translation battle in Seoul, according to Sejong Cyber University and the International Interpretation & Translation Association (IITA), Tuesday.
In the competition, a professional translator will face a showdown with Google Translate and Naver Papago, the two most popular commercialised AI-based translation services that support English and Korean.
Both human translators and AI-based programs will be given two English news articles to translate into Korean, and two stories written in Korean to be rendered into English. Thirty minutes will be provided for each article.
All the news articles will be chosen randomly, according to the organisers. Their translations will be evaluated on accuracy, according to the organisers.
“Human translators and interpreters and those who seek to do these jobs in the future are increasingly facing concerns that they may lose their presence as AI-based automatic translating technologies have rapidly been improved,” IITA Secretary-General Kang Dae-young said.
“Though the event may not completely dispel such worries, we hope to confirm that humans and machines have different strengths and weaknesses and highlight that human professionals will still have their roles in translation and interpretation of the future.”