| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3] > | Poll: Do you offer post editing for AI-generated translations? Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
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Michael Harris 
Germany
Local time: 08:30
Member (2006)
German to English
Tom in London wrote: "Do you offer post editing for AI-generated translations?" Absolutely not. I would rather watch paint drying.
watching paint dry does not pay the bills.
I am not really happy with it, but if that is the way things are going, you might be left out. The same as the 20 mph speed limits in Wales, you can complain and moan about them but they are probably here to stay.
| | | | Zea_Mays
Italy
Local time: 08:30
Member (2009)
English to German
+ ...
Gianni Pastore wrote:
but the only issue I have with MTPE are the lousy rates. Not sure how you people doing it can justify working at a fraction of your full rates.
As I said, I only do MTPE on good MT output and if the rate is good too. Actually, I only do this for one agency as part of a long-term project for a type of content that is generally no longer translated in the traditional way. On the other hand, more of this type of content is translated in terms of volume.
The good quality of the output is key here, which you get only with dedicated trained MT engines. Then MTPE is more like a slightly more extensive proofreading and is paid more than your standard proofreading rate. I actually earn more than if I were to translate the same content myself.
So there is MTPE and MTPE. It's not all the same.
| | | | | Trying to guess what AI translation engines are good at | Oct 4, 2023 |
Maybe EU red tape? So glad I don't have to deal with any paperwork that fuels bureaucratic machinery, except that a lot of engineers are also bureaucrats and I do have to translate their materials. I used to work on ECHR documents quite a lot, but they were fun to translate because of all the life and crime stories they shared – and I also believe that, in my language pair, their AI-translated counterparts would be full of grave errors. Some people mentioned equipment user manuals as MT's lawf... See more Maybe EU red tape? So glad I don't have to deal with any paperwork that fuels bureaucratic machinery, except that a lot of engineers are also bureaucrats and I do have to translate their materials. I used to work on ECHR documents quite a lot, but they were fun to translate because of all the life and crime stories they shared – and I also believe that, in my language pair, their AI-translated counterparts would be full of grave errors. Some people mentioned equipment user manuals as MT's lawful province, and yet whenever I got to translate them and wanted to cheat by copying and pasting, e. g., standardized safety guidelines from other similar manuals found online, I'd always have to rewrite them thoroughly until I was happy with the results. The same goes for forewords, intros, closing notes, etc. to international standards which are now widely available in Russian: each standard translates them in its own way and the translation always sucks in one way or another. I've played with AI-powered translation enough to become quite disillusioned. My overall stance on this remains unchanged: if you want me to review AI-translated material, let me use the AI tool myself during the translation; don't send me something already translated ▲ Collapse
| | | | Eric Hahn
Local time: 08:30
French to German
+ ...
| No, but I use it | Oct 4, 2023 |
I use it to obtain a raw translation, but I still offer translations. The trick is to have only direct clients...
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Gianni Pastore
Italy
Local time: 08:30
Member (2007)
English to Italian
Zea_Mays wrote:
if the rate is good
When the ratio between quality and rates is good, there is no reason to reject MTPE just for the sake of it. But I haven't bumped into one myself yet.
[Edited at 2023-10-05 07:38 GMT]
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what do you expect if you AGREE to this? I have never given a cent of discount for MTPE (nowadays the same as AI) and I won't. If the customer wishes to use it, it's their problem, but the discount is zero, not 45 percent (yes, I did receive such demand in the case of a highly profesional translation).
Edit: just have a look at this review. This is exactly what happens when you AGREE to things. I have received a DEMAND to use this "AI powered system". I did not AGREE. I may be starv... See more what do you expect if you AGREE to this? I have never given a cent of discount for MTPE (nowadays the same as AI) and I won't. If the customer wishes to use it, it's their problem, but the discount is zero, not 45 percent (yes, I did receive such demand in the case of a highly profesional translation).
Edit: just have a look at this review. This is exactly what happens when you AGREE to things. I have received a DEMAND to use this "AI powered system". I did not AGREE. I may be starving but I won't be remembered for delivering shit.
"1. XYZ delivers horrible translations. Quality work is impossible due to extreme time restrictions and low payment.
2. Texts and linguists are not matched. Anyone on the panel can do anything in the job queue, without consideration of skills, qualification or specialization.
3. XYZ recruits amateur linguists with the promise "You can earn up to $18 per hour!" This is obviously an unacceptable rate for any professional linguist, although I must say they paid me $31 per hour, so don't hesitate to ask for more if you are a qualified professional and want to try them out. However, actually only a small part of your time is really paid, because (A) you have to read the job instructions (unpaid), (B) then you can do some work on a full page of text (1 minute paid), (C) then you have a minute of grace to continue the work (1 minute unpaid) and (D) if you hesitate to submit the unfinished work in time you lose the 1-minute payment altogether. - The technical system often has glitches and faults (you can't access work, or submit work done, or you get wrong language pairs offered, etc).
4. Communication with the "support team" is very slow. It can take days to get a reply if you report a problem.
5. Communication with clients is not possible, the linguist cannot make them aware of mistakes in the source texts or ask questions for clarification.
6. The only communication platform for exchange with colleagues is in a closed Facebook group and you can get "fired" if you criticize the company there.
7. The company leaders and the "support team" are not linguists themselves and they give bad advice to the clients, for example to address the readers "informally". They also enter translations full of mistakes into their AI-driven translation machines and make them "non-editable", so the mistakes cannot be fixed, ever. The leadership totally ignores fault reports and advice given by their linguists regarding errors and mistakes, and does not correct them.
8. Altogether, the XYZ platform is perhaps useful as a playground for AI, IT and language students, but definitely not ready to serve corporate clients."
[Edited at 2023-10-05 12:02 GMT]
[Edited at 2023-10-05 12:02 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Zea_Mays
Italy
Local time: 08:30
Member (2009)
English to German
+ ...
| The good ones and the bad ones... | Oct 5, 2023 |
Wojciech Sztukowski wrote:
(...)
Edit: just have a look at this review [about Unb...]. This is exactly what happens when you AGREE to things. I have received a DEMAND to use this "AI powered system". I did not AGREE. I may be starving but I won't be remembered for delivering shit.
"1...."
There are mtpe sweatshops out there like in any other industry, including human translation (even more in the latter).
You can get paid more for MTPE than others for translation, so as in any industry: just choose carefully!
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Zea_Mays wrote:
There are mtpe sweatshops out there like in any other industry, including human translation (even more in the latter).
You can get paid more for MTPE than others for translation, so as in any industry: just choose carefully!
Please forgive me but I haven't met with such offers so far. More like 45% discount. Anyway, the agency we are talking about is just looking for translators. You might as well try your luck... (please forgive me, I'm not trying to be sarcastic toward a fellow sister in arms).
| | | | Lingua 5B
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Local time: 08:30
Member (2009)
English to Croatian
+ ...
Wojciech Sztukowski wrote: Zea_Mays wrote:
There are mtpe sweatshops out there like in any other industry, including human translation (even more in the latter).
You can get paid more for MTPE than others for translation, so as in any industry: just choose carefully! Please forgive me but I haven't met with such offers so far. More like 45% discount. Anyway, the agency we are talking about is just looking for translators. You might as well try your luck... (please forgive me, I'm not trying to be sarcastic toward a fellow sister in arms).
Some clients would offer their prepared pretranslated MT in a CAT tool to edit, and almost all segments contained some type of error (ranging from minor to major). Of course, they wanted it done at a fraction of a rate. I’ll skip, thanks.
| | | | Steven Capsuto
United States
Local time: 02:30
Member (2004)
Spanish to English
+ ...
| Slows me down | Oct 6, 2023 |
AI is fine for getting a second opinion, assuming the source text is non-confidential enough to be uploaded to a third-party server. But for any language pair that I know well enough to charge for, I can do a human translation with a CAT tool much faster than I can edit a machine's translation.
After all, even when editing AI output, you still have to translate every segment yourself, at least in your head, and then instead of just typing the correct translation and moving on, you h... See more AI is fine for getting a second opinion, assuming the source text is non-confidential enough to be uploaded to a third-party server. But for any language pair that I know well enough to charge for, I can do a human translation with a CAT tool much faster than I can edit a machine's translation.
After all, even when editing AI output, you still have to translate every segment yourself, at least in your head, and then instead of just typing the correct translation and moving on, you have to stop and look at the AI version, decide if it's substantially different from your own, edit whatever needs changing, proof the edits, and only then move on. We should charge a premium for postediting, not offer discounts.
In any case, it is dull, unpleasant work and usually pays peanuts. If that becomes the future of translation, I'll do something else. Fortunately, I have a broad skill set.
[Edited at 2023-10-06 12:30 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Steven Capsuto
United States
Local time: 02:30
Member (2004)
Spanish to English
+ ...
| Watching paint dry, or... | Oct 6, 2023 |
Michael Harris wrote:
I would rather watch paint drying. watching paint dry does not pay the bills.
But there are lots of other activities that do pay the bills, and many of them are more interesting and better remunerated than correcting an AI program's mistakes.
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| Why it doesn't slow me down (or help me work appreciably faster either) | Oct 9, 2023 |
Steven Capsuto wrote:
After all, even when editing AI output, you still have to translate every segment yourself, at least in your head, and then instead of just typing the correct translation and moving on, you have to stop and look at the AI version, decide if it's substantially different from your own, edit whatever needs changing, proof the edits, and only then move on. We should charge a premium for postediting, not offer discounts
Whenever I use MT in my workflow, I always remain conscious of the fact that I'll have to do all the thinking and research myself – like, all of it. I usually don't even look at what the robot has written and start translating and typing right away, and it only takes a fraction of a second to spot a correctly translated term or expression in the target box and spare myself the labor of typing them by hand. Analysing MT output for whether it's good and reliable is never part of the process in my case. Even with today's super-advanced AI capabilities (which I don't use although my MT engine is neural-powered) it's still worth remembering that this thing can't be trusted. Maybe things are different for other translators who get to work on simple texts way more than I do
| | | | | Re: poll - MTPE and AI | Oct 10, 2023 |
MT is AI anyway. So if that is the question, my answer is yes. I think resisting it would be like refusing to take the train because you prefer to walk everywhere, or insisting on sending a letter rather than an email. As for the pricing, that is a separate issue - I am just talking about the process itself. MTPE is a skill that can be learnt like other skills, it just requires intensive proofreading. Obviously the quality of MT output depends on the language pair and on the type of document; FR... See more MT is AI anyway. So if that is the question, my answer is yes. I think resisting it would be like refusing to take the train because you prefer to walk everywhere, or insisting on sending a letter rather than an email. As for the pricing, that is a separate issue - I am just talking about the process itself. MTPE is a skill that can be learnt like other skills, it just requires intensive proofreading. Obviously the quality of MT output depends on the language pair and on the type of document; FR-EN and GER-EN are normally quite good for standard contracts. (Actually one time a document had "Essen" as a place of signature, and it was translated as "food". Good thing I caught that one.)
If you mean a translation by Chat GPT or similar, that is more useful for something where you need more creativity (e.g. an equivalent pun or poem). So I wouldn't venture there. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Lingua 5B
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Local time: 08:30
Member (2009)
English to Croatian
+ ...
Michael Kelly wrote:
I think resisting it would be like refusing to take the train because you prefer to walk everywhere
Nope, you just take another train. A nicer one, with comfortable seats.
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