Talking to the linguists of tomorrow

With the rise of AI and other disruptive technologies transforming the modern workplace, the energy and flexibility of young people can only be a huge advantage and a rich source of skills and knowledge. With this in mind, on Friday 11 April, we had the privilege of hosting a group of talented students from the University of the Upper Alsace (Université de Haute Alsace) at our Luxembourg premises. They visited to learn about our work, our journey and how we combine human expertise with the power of AI to deliver a wide range of services to our EU partners. AI is a revolution, and nowhere is this more evident than in the language services industry. Translation has become ubiquitous in a world in which people can obtain instant gist translations of articles or websites at the click of a button. This raises the everyday visibility and importance of translation, but also brings with it an awareness that this level of translation cannot be compared with the quality achieved by experienced human linguistic experts. This is the tricky tightrope younger people will need to walk: balancing the expectations of the modern world for delivering results efficiently, at pace and at scale, whilst at the same time maintaining a keen eye on quality and accuracy. In an era where accurate and reliable information is paramount, ensuring that texts continue to fulfil this brief is the job of language professionals. Further investment and development in AI-based technologies will be called for,...