Ai and the Globalization Industry Careers and opportunities

Some 20-odd years ago, Annette Hemera started working in the language industry. At the time, folks in the industry were witnessing the painful and troublesome birth of new technologies: computer-aided translation, translation memories, automatized terminology management, and the growth of machine translation (MT). Back then the language industry arena was loud and heated with frustrated and doubtful discussions about decreasing translator fees, shrinking vendor margins, and client complaints of declining quality. Coffee breaks were spent reading and commenting on those outrageous stories of faulty translations and poor global marketing — remember “Chevy no va?” But no one could have anticipated what was coming. We have been going through a new-age version of the Industrial Revolution. Alex Yanishevsky, an MT expert with 20 years under his belt, likens the growth of artificial intelligence (AI) to the invention of the Gutenberg printing press. Likewise, Jay Marciano, who has been involved in MT since 1998, once wrote in an article of this magazine (back when it was still Multilingual Computing), that the impact of AI is comparable to the impact of sound on the silent picture industry. It is disruptive and creating many new career opportunities. AI in the globalization industry is here to stay. What should language owners and personnel do? Well, when everyone else is doing it, it might be time for you to start doing it too. This article will discuss many of the AI technologies applied to the language industry and the related career paths and opportunities for people in or entering the globalization space. Let’s take a step back for a second: What even is AI? AI is the simulation of human intelligence processes by machines, especially computer systems. Specific applications of AI include expert systems, natural language processing, speech recognition, and machine vision. Machine tasks very often include intellectual processes like learning from past experiences (machine learning), generalizing, and reasoning. You can classify artificial systems into artificial narrow intelligence, artificial general intelligence, and artificial super intelligence.