The language industry follows the same pattern every time.

Translation memories triggered anxiety. So did statistical machine translation, then neural MT, and now large language models. None of these replaced translators, but each one changed how translators work and expanded the scope of what could be translated.

After a year of watching generative AI evolve, it became clear to me that this is not a disruptive innovation for translation. It's an incremental one.

Translation accounts for less than 0.001 percent of the world's content creation. What AI does is make it possible to translate more of that content. Words that would never have crossed a language barrier before are now within reach. Google Translate handles one trillion words a month. That's more than all human translators translate in a year.

Mistakes I Cannot Sea

I ran this poem thru it
I’m sure your pleased to no
Its letter perfect in it’s weigh
My checker tolled me sew.

Candidate for a Pullet Surprise

I have a spelling checker,
It came with my PC.
It plane lee marks four my revue
Miss steaks aye can knot sea.

Eye ran this poem threw it,
Your sure reel glad two no.
Its vary polished in it’s weigh.
My checker tolled me sew.

A checker is a bless sing,
It freeze yew lodes of thyme.
It helps me right awl stiles two reed,
And aides me when eye rime.

Each frays come posed up on my screen
Eye trussed too bee a joule.
The checker pours o’er every word
To cheque sum spelling rule.

Bee fore a veiling checker’s
Hour spelling mite decline,
And if we’re lacks oar have a laps,
We wood bee maid too wine.

Butt now bee cause my spelling
Is checked with such grate flare,
Their are know fault’s with in my cite,
Of nun eye am a wear.

Now spelling does knot phase me,
It does knot bring a tier.
My pay purrs awl due glad den
With wrapped word’s fare as hear.

To rite with care is quite a feet
Of witch won should bee proud,
And wee mussed dew the best wee can,
Sew flaw’s are knot aloud.

Sow ewe can sea why aye dew prays
Such soft wear four pea seas,
And why eye brake in two averse
Buy righting want too pleas.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is endlessly feeding the eardrums of listeners with what we can call the fast food of content: a soulless and crass mix of perfect sound, horribly imitating the human voice. <...> But narration is an art.

<...> It [AI] takes literature — one of the most valuable human art forms — and strips it of its humanity. Like fast food, it is wholly unhealthy — a destroyer of taste and authenticity.

We must ask ourselves, “Do we really listen to audiobooks purely to consume words?” I hope we don’t. I believe we listen to audiobooks for an expressive interpretation of the written text, for the personal touch of a human.

Dearest creature in Creation,
Studying English pronunciation,
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse.

It will keep you, Susy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy;
Tear in eye your dress you'll tear.
So shall I! Oh, hear my prayer,

Pray, console your loving poet,
Make my coat look new, dear, sew it?
Just compare heart, beard and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,

Sword and sward, retain and Britain,
(Mind the latter, how it's written!)
Made has not the sound of bade,
Say—said, pay—paid, laid, but plaid.