Artificial Intelligence tools in translation. Boon or bane?

 

**This was posted on my Facebook page a month ago.**

For the last couple of days, an inevitable debate on human translation and AI (Artificial Intelligence) tools translation has occupied a considerable space usually allotted to literary discussion on Facebook. This has come to the fore with the publication of a much-awaited Tamil translation. It has received a mixed response from the readers, who say that the language of the translation is unduly terse and incomprehensible and bears an appeal that it could have been a machine-translated language. It is unlikely, though. I have my own strong reasons not to fall into the current of biased criticisms. 

Setting it aside, here are some observations written not in the light of controversies the book has sparked. It is my general observation on how I look at the advent of AI tools in the field of translation.

The degree of comprehension and ‘readability’ of a translation are in fact not in the hands of the translator. It depends on the source language he deals with. For the sake of a conservative understanding, we can approach the business of translation in two ways. One, the translators who have taken an oath to be extremely truthful to the original work in terms of everything that includes usage of diction, semantics, structure of sentence (though the structure of the original is not palatable to the taste of vernacular readers), etc. This category of translators is often not creative writers per se. Even if they happen to be  creative writers, they don’t allow their creative freedom to dictate terms on translation. Most of the present generation translators do belong to this category. They just attempt to bring in translation the near approximation of the original. Second, the translators, who are essentially creative writers. They comprehend the original text and reproduce it without much digression from the original. If you compare the original with this translation, you won’t find anything awkward and will rather find it a complete piece in every sense. While the first category of translators is busy with the words and syntax, the second category of translators is busy with the prospect of people enjoying the text the way the original text could have been enjoyed. More often, the second category of translators are the ones who create literary masterpieces without overtly betraying the original, if they are equally gifted with the same set of language skills as the original author. 

Having had a first-hand touch with almost all the English translations of Tamil fiction, I have observed a classic compromise in almost every piece of these translations, be it Perumal Murugan or Ambai or anyone—a compromise consciously executed in order to cater to the requirements of ‘readability’ of the English readers. Most of these translations are primarily published for the Indian readers who know English. It is extremely rare that these translations are read by the readers living in predominantly English-speaking countries. Other than some pulp fiction, any literary work published either in the US or UK won’t have this compromised literary taste. This explains why we find the English translations of Tamil classics mediocre, not taxing one’s literary sensibility. This inevitably leads to substandard English translations, which in no way command the respect it aspires to have. These substandard translations, both in English and Tamil (or any vernacular for that matter), are the result of overdependence on artificial intelligence tools. The substandard translations are the by-product of inchoate editors who mostly depend on AI tools. Gone are the days when we found the editors with mettle who had extensively read both the source and target languages and commanded enviable mastery over the languages. Now what we find are the editors in publishing houses who have just come out of professional colleges and have no extensive reading and experience in languages. The result: they are forced to rely on AI tools to fill the gap produced by their inexperience and thus the substandard output.

Even before the advent of AI tools, there had been translations that we mostly cherish without much complaint. Notwithstanding the terseness of the original text, the singular aim of the translator remained to bring it into an acceptable language that doesn’t contradict the linguistic sensibility of the vernacular readers. These translations offered an equal amount of literary taste of the original. Puthumai Pithan did it in his translations. If someone tries to assess his Tamil translations with their original, he will be monumentally disappointed. It is because it is a creative translation, ostensibly not of the first category of translators. Now, as the translation industry has boomed in almost all the languages, the translators are under stress to produce a pattern of language as complicated as the original. Here lies the linguistic sensibility of the vernacular reader that hasn’t been trained to approach any complicated narrative form of literature. In addition to this, the translators, who are either with inadequate exposure to the linguistic subtleties or under undue stress to bring out the translations faster, fall prey to AI tools. 

AI tools are not a panacea to the maladies of translation. It may have become handy to inchoate translators, but at the cost of putting literature on the altar. I don’t think it is wrong if a translator could produce only a couple of translations in his entire lifetime. It is fine. On the one hand, AI tools are making persuasive entry everywhere; and on the other hand,  there is an amount of shame one suffers that he or she is not able to declare in public about the usage of AI in translation. It is being looked down upon, an affront to one’s creative skills. Since readers are growingly smart enough to sift the husk from the grains, the literary translators need to nurture their innate skills in translation rather than depending on easy-going AI tools.

Simple solution to this: Read, read, read, and then read again. Write, write, write, and write again. If you are lazy at it, please leave the translation for the sake of literature.

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