A major Dutch publisher plans to trial the use of artificial intelligence to translate books into English.
Veen Bosch & Keuning (VBK), the Netherlands’ largest publisher, which was acquired by Simon & Schuster earlier this year, has announced that it is using AI to help translate a limited number of books. ” said Vanessa van Hofwegen, Commercial Director at VBK. .
“This project contains fewer than 10 titles, all of which are commercial novels. No literary titles will be used. This is experimental and only books for which English rights are not sold. , and we do not foresee any opportunity to sell the English rights to these books in the future,” she added.
“There is one editorial stage and authors are asked for their permission,” a VBK spokesperson told Booksellers. “We’re not using AI to create books. Everything starts and ends with human behavior.”
The fact that the publisher plans to use AI translation only for commercial novels and not literary titles “assumes that those books are purely formulaic and do not contain much creative elements. , which is quite insulting to the authors and readers involved.” Michelle Hutchison won the 2020 International Booker Prize for her translation of Lukas Reinfeldt’s The Discomfort of Night.
There are limits to what you can do with machine translation post-editing. This is the process by which human translators review translations generated by AI. “The writing may be smooth on the surface, but it’s also likely to be very bland,” she added.
David McKay, a literary translator responsible for translations from Dutch to English, says, “Keeping translators out of the loop opens the door to incorrect or misleading translations, which can lead to poor service to readers.” will decline,” he said. He said it was understandable that publishers would want to use new technology to “increase efficiency,” but added that VBK’s plan “sounds very reckless.”
“If I were one of the authors at Wien Bosch & Keuning, I would be very concerned about how these AI translations would reflect on my work and affect my reputation.”
Ian Giles, co-chair of the Society of Authors (SoA) Translators, said a SoA study published earlier this year found that more than a third of translators have lost their jobs to generative AI. and called the news “alarming.”
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If VBK “feels the need to consult human translators and editors to adjust” the output produced by AI, “they are recognizing the flaws in this approach.” It will be.”
