‘Being human helps’: despite rise of AI is there still hope for Europe’s translators?
TL;DR
A booming tech sector has disrupted translation jobs in publishing – but they could be needed for a while longer yet In February 2022, while he was plugging away at rendering the US writer Dana Spiotta’s novel Wayward into French, the literary translator Yoann Gentric decided he needed a bit of light relief. He would test whether AI could put him out of work.
Nauti's Take
Encouraging: even with DeepL handling speed, the Spiotta novel test shows literary translation still rewards humans with feel for rhythm, mood, and ambiguity. The catch: publishers will still push cheap machine output across most jobs, squeezing rates and volume for human translators long term.
Translators with a future will lean hard into literature, brand voice, and editing AI drafts – everyday throughput work is unlikely to come back.
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