Translation in the 21st Century

January 1954

Translation is very difficult … Tower of Babel Divide & Unite Language as Instinct Translation is very difficult …

October 2004 Reality Check … TAUS founded.

Let a Thousand MT Systems Bloom! Effectiveness of Data Profit from sharing (“Pirate’s Dilemma”)

Five years ahead … MT is here to stay Translation as a Utility … as a Human Right Five years ahead …

Enterprises in 5 Years Need a Language Strategy not just reducing word rates “Dual Linguaspheres” Automate Innovate Collaborate

Technology in 5 Years No Real Breakthroughs Hybrid Systems Targeted Correction (communities, games) Real-time Training

Exciting new perspectives … TMs in 5 Years Cleaning Semantic Clustering Corpus Linguistics Preserve Endangered Languages Exciting new perspectives …

Profession in 5 Years Choices End to Repetitive Tasks Productivity 5 to 10 Times Higher Supplemented by Non-Professional Volunteers

Applications in 5 Years Translation out of the Wall Virtuous Circle Spoken Translation

? Helping the world communicating better … Industry in 5 Years Machines New Business Models ? Shared Resources & Utilities Growth Open (Collaborative) Closed (Competitive) Innovation comes from outside It’s all about the data Helping the world communicating better … Human & Machine

Scenario-Based Planning Adobe Autodesk Bowne CA Technologies Cisco Dell eBay EMC Google Intel Lionbridge McAfee Microsoft Oracle Paypal Philips SDL Siemens Symantec Yahoo! 9/22/2018

Thinking about Drivers/Trends (notes from the Copenhagen meeting) Certain Content explosion Shift from text to text and multi-media Mobile user, hand held devices Real time/Just in time demand Balance of cost, timeliness and quality Uncertain Cloud translation replaces LSPs Open (collaborative) Vs Closed (competitive)? Fee Vs free? Human Vs Machine? (incremental step or Technology breakthrough) 9/22/2018

? Industry in 5 Years Machines Open Closed (Collaborative) Capability axe Machines Collaboration axe ? Open (Collaborative) Closed (Competitive) Human & Machine

Industry in 5 Years – Open/Machine Machines New Hope (free light saber on applications) ? Open (Collaborative) Closed (Competitive) Human & Machine

Events that would Drive the Industry to the Open/Machine Quadrant Pricing pressure from buyers are driving to a higher degree of automation Transparency in collaborative environments supports benchmarking and thus competition Standardization of measurements and quality levels provides comparability Demand outpaces supply Increased global competition of LSPs Volume and price pressure forces LSPs to source globally, which is only possible using open standards Buyers less concerned about competing with their peers. 9/22/2018

Characteristics of the Open/Machine Quadrant Openness increases available resources Cheaper per word than today Cost reduction through a normalized and standardized pipeline Shared TMs Shared and standardized interfaces increase degree of automation Standardized measurements are available to all 9/22/2018

Implications to the Translation Industry Move away from per-word pricing to compensation for value-add activities LSPs pick focus areas other than translating words. 9/22/2018

Characteristics Closed/Machines The Dishwasher! ? Open (Collaborative) Closed (Competitive) Human & Machine

Events that would Drive the Industry to the Closed/Machines Quadrant If for any reason, open source fails New, proprietary, much better private MT, patented, disruptive…. This is where industry momentum is headed Content mix shifts 9/22/2018

Implications to the Translation Industry Lost opportunity for market Seller’s market – cost stays high Less richness of languages/localization Less global availability Less innovation 9/22/2018

Characteristics Closed/Human-Machines ? Open (Collaborative) Closed (Competitive) Status Quo Human & Machine

Events that would Drive the Industry to this Closed/Human Quadrant Increased government regulation Failure of MT to improve quality Technology makes humans more efficient Move to SAAS keeps control on IT costs Sues Google and wins, locking content IT Consolidation in the industry leads to stagnation Increasing litigious society makes human checking essential Maximizing shareholder value implies closed markets 9/22/2018

Key Characteristics of the Closed/Human Quadrant Majority of “translation editing” is done with humans Supply chain localisation stays with a few publishers Only junk content gets MT’d Crowd sourcing turns into email-spam 9/22/2018

Implications to the Translation Industry No disruptive changes Breeds complacency Someone else will invent it for us Clever people go elsewhere Cloud and community stay around People pay for software Only first world to translation services 9/22/2018

? Open/Human-Machine Machines Open Closed (Collaborative) (Competitive) Cyborg Cloud Human & Machine

Events that would Drive the Industry to the Open-Human/Machines Quadrant Geo-political Availability of social networking (for example, PRC) Accessibility to the technology Online democratization Content value / quality target Human = high value/high quality, MT = lower value / lower quality Post edit versus raw Technology plateau Limits of performance and quality Legal requirement for human translation and quality Drive to multimedia 9/22/2018

Key Characteristics of the Open/Machine Quadrant Economic conditions drive to Open/Human For example, recession Slower technology evolution Need to translate between a greater number of languages (for example Swahili and Brazilian Portuguese) 9/22/2018

Implications to the Translation Industry More focus on standards Cloud providers and social providers will play a greatly role Opportunity to develop new tools for the human / machine translation interface Cyborg Voice-to-text 9/22/2018

Industry Think Tank www.translationautomation.com in 5 Years Open Translation Platforms Language Business Innovation Industry Collaboration Translation Automation www.translationautomation.com

Industry Data Resources in 5 Years Industry Data Resources Billions of Words Translation Matching TM Cleaning Matching Scores www.tausdata.org