In a world where technology evolves at breakneck speed, it's no surprise that artificial intelligence (AI) has found its way into the intricate art of translation and subtitling. But what does this mean for those of us who have spent years honing our craft in this field? One of our upcoming speakers at ProZ.com Meetups, Salvador Balbuena, an experienced translator and subtitler, has an inspiring story that sheds light on this very question.

Angela Luana Zalazar Aguirre

Is Technology a Threat to Culture?

Gabriel Fairman

Translators and Executives Need to Talk.

Last week, Bureau Works published some serious data about our context-sensitive translation technology. It was a rigorous study that evaluated over 4 million translated segments. Our engineering team works closely with our data scientists to produce good data that will be helpful in advancing our industry. They are scientists through and through, dissecting the data we collect for deep and nuanced insights.

I, on the other hand, am more of a data backhoe. I roll into a mine of potential information, scoop out a rough chunk, and see what I find inside. I do this by asking questions on LinkedIn. They are opinion questions, but opinions and emotions are their own type of data. They are data on where we are as a community, and they tell us what we need to develop in the relational part of the localization business.

Gabriel Fairman

And Bureau Works Killed It.

I had good fun writing that intro out, and kudos to anyone who catches my very forced reference, but today I am sitting down to write about something less literary and existentialist than the opening would have you believe (the reference is to Camus’s “The Stranger”).

I came to write about cold, hard data, and the pretty amazing things we have found at Bureau Works. My intro may have been thematically irrelevant, but the claim is exactly what I will be explaining here- MTPE is dead and Bureau Works killed it.

Gabriel Fairman

What is the “purpose” of a translator?

The English word “purpose” is foggy and imprecise. If I ask “What is the purpose of a translator?” I could be asking many different questions at one time. I could be asking “What role does the translator fill?” or “Why do they fill it?” I could be asking what purpose they are fulfilling for themselves, or what purpose they are fulfilling for someone else. It is a word that needs the support of other words to be understood.

Gabriel Fairman

Innovating tech is easy. Innovating society is hard. That’s what is going on in our industry right now.

Gabriel Fairman

But it may help us self-actualize

I constantly hear “Large Language Models just produce statistically average language”, as if that were:

A) Inherently bad

B) Different from what humans do

Then, I also hear “Language is infinite. AI can’t keep up with all of the possibilities”.

Gabriel Fairman

But that doesn’t mean we can’t control anything.

Welcome to another thought-provoking journey into the heart of change and its inherent tension, as presented by Gabriel Fairmain. In this post, Gabriel challenges us to reconsider our perceptions of change and dive in to discover how the dialectic of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis shapes our evolving relationship with technology and translation, and what this means for the future of our work.

Gabriel Fairman

Once again, Gabriel Fairman invites us to analyze contemporary struggles with a perspective from distant times and to think how we, as humans, can reinvent ourselves and get messy!

Gabriel Fairman

Dive into the dynamic world of language services with Gabriel Fairman as he tackles the contentious topic of AI. What's your stand when it comes to technological advancements? Weigh in and draw your own conclusions!

Gabriel Fairman

On April 26, 2024, language professionals from around Cádiz gathered for a special occasion—the ProZ.com powwow celebrating the platform’s 25th anniversary. Held in person, this event provided an excellent opportunity for linguists, translators, and interpreters to connect, share insights, and commemorate a quarter-century of ProZ.com’s impact on the industry.

Helen Shepelenko | Head of Training, Tools and Events at ProZ

The scariest part of any change is that there is always something to lose. When confronted with change, we must determine what we will lose by changing and what we will lose by staying the same.

Gabriel Fairman

AI has a champagne problem. Professionals are overly concerned about the “real” thing, but the average buyer just wants something to do the job.

We’ve all been there. We are at a celebration for something and out come the bottles:

“Want some champagne?”

Then, someone takes a peek at the bottle and says “This isn’t actually champagne because it isn’t from the champagne region of France. It is sparkling wine.”

Gabriel Fairman

Gabriel Fairman, Founder and CEO of Bureau Works, joins ProZ.com as a blog guest to reflect -- and invite us all to reflect with him-- on AI and the challenges we face when discussing it.

“AI” isn’t the biggest challenge our industry is facing. Talking about AI is.

Gabriel Fairman

On International Translation Day weekend in 2023, I met Danielle Sanchez. Coincidence? I don't think so. Danielle had just upgraded her ProZ.com membership to the new Premium monthly option and something told me she knew exactly what she was doing. The Premium membership option was released to those who would like to enjoy all the benefits available at ProZ.com, but also to those who understand the importance of expanding their online presence (the Premium comes with a website). But that's not all, since Danielle already had a great website that she created herself, I knew she was up to something else: the AI component also included in Premium. (For more information about the Premium monthly option click here).

Lucía Leszinsky