The ATA Chronicle - November/December 2022 - 13

y Investigating a potential
tie-in with university
T&I programs, where,
upon graduating with
a T&I degree, students
might get a " trial "
ATA membership. This
would serve to create
a connection with
professionals early in
their career.
y Setting up a more formal
in-house structure aimed
at non-member T&Is who
may never join ATA (for
any reason) but could still
benefit from continuing
education, webinars,
conferences, etc. This would
provide ATA with muchneeded
additional revenue.
y Exploring needs-based
assistance on membership
pricing for low-income
members. Perhaps this
could take the form of a
stripped-down type of
membership/services.
These ideas are incipient
and will likely undergo
adjustments before
implementation, if approved
by the Board of Directors.
Members are encouraged
to contact the Strategy
Committee chair with their
comments, suggestions,
and feedback (john@
milanlanguageservices.com).
Also, check out ATA's website
for a full description of the
committee's charge.1
Keeping Informed
of Developments in
Machine Translation
Another matter the Strategy
Committee has looked at
www.ata-chronicle.online
recently is in response
to an article that Slator,
an industry analyst for
the global translation,
localization, and language
technology industry,
published on their website,
called " Unresolvable
Ambiguity in MT Leads to
Bias. " The key idea here is
there are certain aspects of
machine translation (MT)
that artificial intelligence
may never be able to solve;
namely, certain types of
bias. According to the
article's author:
" Unresolvable ambiguities
are different from other
occasions when the MT
simply gets things wrong.
No artificial intelligence
(AI), however smart,
can ever guess what you
meant if there is no trace
of it in the text. This
means that we cannot fix
MT bias just by improving
existing AI. The only
way is to ask the user to
disambiguate manually. " 2
The significance of
this topic to ATA and our
profession is that AI-based
MT is always going to have
limitations that require
human intervention, given
the nature of language and
inherent biases in the way
these systems have been
developed. Two members of
the Strategy Committee have
been interested and actively
following this " bias " issue
for some time now. We will
be reviewing other articles
and research on this subject,
with the goal of sharing an
opinion piece with the Board
in the near future.
Tracking Industry and
Technological Trends
In terms of keeping abreast
of the latest developments
in our field, members of the
Strategy Committee have
been attending a wide range
of events, such as the latest
gathering of the Association
for Machine Translation in
the Americas in Orlando,
Florida.3
have also attended the
two most recent SlatorCon
Remote4
gatherings, which
took place in June and
September. The committee
has reported to the Board
on some of the relevant
takeaways from these events,
as summarized below.
The virtual event held in
June was Slator's seventh
remote affair, which they
intend to continue offering
for the foreseeable future.
Organizers noted that
in-person events in many
countries have reported
50% to 60% of their prepandemic
attendance,
although those figures vary
considerably by region.
In their language services
outlook for the rest of
2022, Slator noted that our
industry is " shifting gears "
and as a whole is expected to
slow down and be affected
by the potential coming
recession. That said, media
and gaming localization are
reportedly doing better than
average. Language services
and technology are projected
to grow 3% year-on-year
Members of
the committee
represent
Committee members
both new and
experienced
translators/
interpreters
working in
a variety of
specializations.
in this current reality, down
from expectations of 5%
growth at the beginning of
this year.
Some of the reasons
proposed for why language
services have remained
resilient in the face of
economic turmoil include:
y The fact that language
services aren't overly
correlated with the overall
economy, which means
that, in general, they tend
to be relatively resistant
to inflation.
y In many countries, language
services-including
language access-aren't
optional, so businesses, the
courts, medical facilities,
etc., have to continue
complying with regulations.
y There are pockets of new
demand in the profession,
such as gaming and
dubbing content, which
continue to grow.
y Our industry has been
leading the way in expertin-the-loop
adoption of
American Translators Association 13
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The ATA Chronicle - November/December 2022

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