Fortune 10<\/a> corporate client, which she said opted to use a company offering AI translation instead. The client accounted for such an outsized share of her company\u2019s business that she had to make layoffs.\n <\/p>\n ![\"Christina](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/christina-green.jpg\")
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\n \u201cPeople and companies think they\u2019re saving money with AI, but they have absolutely no clue what it is, how privacy is affected and what the ramifications are,\u201d Green said.\n <\/p>\n
\n Fardous Bahbouh, based in London, is an Arabic-language translator and interpreter for international media organizations, including CNN. She has seen a considerable reduction in written work in recent years, which she attributes to technological developments and the financial pressures facing media outlets.\n <\/p>\n
\n Bahbouh is also studying for a PhD focusing on the translation industry. Her research shows that technology, including AI, is \u201chugely impacting\u201d translators and interpreters.\n <\/p>\n
![\"Governments](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/fardous-bahbouh.jpg\")
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\n \u201cI worry a great deal that governments are not doing enough to help them transition into other work, which could lead to greater inequality, in-work poverty and child poverty,\u201d she told CNN.\n <\/p>\n
\n Many translators are indeed looking to retrain \u201cbecause translation isn\u2019t generating the income it previously did,\u201d according to Ian Giles, a translator and chair of the Translators Association at the UK\u2019s Society of Authors. The picture is similar in the United States: Many translators are leaving the profession, Andy Benzo, president of the American Translators Association, told CNN.\n <\/p>\n
\n And Kristalina Georgieva, the head of the International Monetary Fund, said in Davos Thursday that the number of translators and interpreters at the fund had gone down to 50 from 200 due to greater use of technology.\n <\/p>\n
\n Governments should also do more for those remaining in the translation industry, by introducing stronger labor protections, Bahbouh argued.\n <\/p>\n
\n Despite advances in machine translation and interpretation, technology can\u2019t replace human language workers entirely just yet.\n <\/p>\n
![\"Andy](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/andy-benzo.jpg\")
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\n While using AI tools for everyday tasks like finding directions is \u201clow-risk,\u201d human translators will likely need to be involved for the foreseeable future in diplomatic, legal, financial and medical contexts where the risks are \u201chumungous,\u201d according to Benzo.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cI\u2019m a translator and a lawyer and in both professions the nuance of each word is very specific and the (large language models powering AI tools) aren\u2019t there yet, by far,\u201d she said.\n <\/p>\n
\n Another field relatively untouched by machine translation tools is literary translation.\n <\/p>\n
\n Giles, who translates commercial fiction from Scandinavian languages into English, used to supplement his income with translation work from companies, but that has now disappeared. Meanwhile, literary commissions have continued to come in, he said.\n <\/p>\n
\n There\u2019s also one key element of communication that AI can\u2019t replace, according to Oxford University\u2019s Frey: Human connection.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cThe fact that machine translation is pervasive doesn\u2019t mean you can build a relationship with somebody in France without speaking a word of French,\u201d he said.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"London \u00a0\u2014\u00a0 As a rare Irish-language translator, Timothy McKeon enjoyed steady work for European Union institutions for years.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":386443,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[554,733,4308,86,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-386442","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-technology","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=386442"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386442\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/386443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=386442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=386442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=386442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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